Emma Henderson MBE FRAeS

I help your people lead better, decide faster, stay grounded under pressure and navigate through turbulent times Whether it’s a conference keynote, leadership retreat or team development session, I bring over 30 years of aviation leadership into your room - not to tell flying stories, but to give your people tools they’ll actually use. I speak about decision-making under pressure, trust, resilience and real leadership - the kind that shows up when things go wrong, not when everything’s going smoothly. I’ve led flight crews through emergencies, trained captains, and built national wellbeing initiatives during a pandemic. Now, I use that experience to help leaders like yours thrive in complexity. Clients come to me when: ✦ Their leaders are under pressure ✦ The culture needs clarity and courage ✦ They want practical takeaways, not just inspiration Keynotes, workshops or panels—I tailor each session to your audience and leave them thinking differently. I don’t do fluff. I do frameworks, stories, tools—and messages that stick. 📩 Let’s talk if your next event needs a speaker who gets the responsibility of leadership—and knows how to make it human.

I have over 30 years experience in the aviation industry as a pilot, and spent 12 years flying hundreds of passengers a day around the skies of Europe gaining command and becoming one of fewer than 500 female airline captains in the world. In 2020, having created a charity - Project Wingman - which uses the transferable skills of airline staff to provide well-being support to NHS and Blue Light services, I took the difficult decision to take voluntary redundancy from the career I loved and had worked hard to succeed in, and realised that the lessons I had learned over the course of my career are not only transferrable, but valuable to people in industry. Forging my career in a male dominated industry, I also learned resilience the hard way - from a family kidnap in 2003, through a life changing accident, surviving a house fire and then being confronted with my own life threatening illness, I then FAILED my first attempt at the ultimate challenge for a pilot - COMMAND - and I learned how to work out what the important things in life really are. Failure is Bruno! We don't talk about it - and WE SHOULD because we learn more about ourselves and grow more through failure than at any other stage of our development. When I work with you - I find out what you specific needs and pain points are, and I deliver sessions that provide you with answers, solutions and strategies, as well as inspiration and a healthy dose of humour, to empower your teams to dig deeper, be braver, become a more cohesive team, and ultimately, improve their performance through better decision making, communication, and teamwork. If you would like me to work with you to deliver these things, send me an email at emma@emma-henderson.com or write me a message! I will reply as quickly as I can and get the ball rolling whether you are looking for a keynote speaker for a large conference, or a leadership workshop for a small group - talk to me and I will bring you solutions...

There was something else in the air that night which made us feel that the flight we had just operated was somehow significant. Whether it was the anticipation of our impending doom or just a realisation that a tidal wave was rushing towards us and we were trapped on the beach, unable to escape its inevitability, I will never know, but ultimately, although I did not know it at the time, this was a very significant flight for me because it turned out to be the last flight in eleven years at my airline, in a career spanning more than thirty years and five different bases. The fact that there are still fewer than 500 female airline captains in the world today is part of the reason that I wanted to tell my story. I have a voice, it is my responsibility to use it to benefit other people, I may be grounded, at the moment, but this isn’t necessarily the end of my flying story, it never is when you fly, because flying is not something you do, flying is something you are.

Responsible for overseeing PPL training and instructors including ground training. Also in charge of all administrative aspects including advertising, promoting the training organisation to build up new business and standardisation of all flying and ground training.

PPL Instructor for a small flying school reporting to CFI Responsible for lesson planning, briefing and debriefing students, assisting with theory for examinations and encouraging students in working towards their private pilots licence Also included night flying and ferry flights for maintenance purposes

PPL and Ground Theory Instructor teaching a mixture of private students and Brunel University students including planning lessons, and giving ground school lectures in Meteorology