Most Inspiring Woman Leader in Business Excellence, 2025: Emma Mekisic

Some leaders deliver strong outcomes, and there are leaders who redefine what strength looks like in business and in life. Emma Mekisic belongs to the second group. Her journey spans nearly two decades in financial services, a defining health battle that demanded every ounce of courage, and a new chapter driving excellence in operations at WA Insurance Builders and Restofix Services. For her rare blend of resilience, influence, and purpose, and for the consistent way she puts people at the heart of performance, Ctoday Awards confers the title Most Inspiring Woman Leader in Business Excellence, 2025.

A Career Built on Excellence and Empathy

Emma’s professional story begins in the rigorous world of banking and financial services, where she spent close to twenty years guiding teams, shaping growth strategies, and strengthening cultures in both small businesses and large corporate environments. Her hallmark has always been a people-first approach that aligns employee wellbeing with measurable performance. She believes that teams do their best work when they feel supported, trusted, and challenged with clarity. In practice, this shows up as mentoring emerging leaders, setting expectations with transparency, and equipping people with the tools that help them succeed in complex environments.

Colleagues and stakeholders recall her ability to balance customer outcomes with operational discipline. The outcomes speak to a consistent pattern. Lift the standard of communication, simplify the handoffs that slow delivery, and create a culture of accountability that is firm and fair. Then partner these elements with an authentic connection to people. The result is a sustained increase in performance that does not burn out the team that produces it.

Defining Moments and a Deeper Purpose

In 2025, Emma confronted a life event that reoriented her priorities without dulling her ambition. A diagnosis of Stage Three bowel cancer forced her to meet fear with honesty and to find strength in vulnerability. She chose to share her journey openly, creating space for real conversations and building a support network that extended beyond her immediate circle. Treatment demanded patience, grit, and faith. Responding exceptionally well to care, she emerged with resilience reinforced and empathy deepened.

The experience sharpened her voice on what matters most. Lead with purpose, build community, and never underestimate how courage can inspire others to find their own. These lessons are now inseparable from her leadership. Vulnerability is not a weakness when it is paired with responsibility. Perseverance is not just stubborn effort but a disciplined return to the values that have always mattered. Community is not something declared in a mission statement. It is built by showing up for others and allowing them to show up for us.

Emma brought these insights back into the workplace with humility and conviction. The teams around her could feel the difference. The emphasis on well-being became more practical. The patience for growth became more generous. The standards for delivery remained firm.

A New Chapter at WA Insurance Builders and Restofix Services

Today, Emma serves as Business Excellence and Operations Manager at WA Insurance Builders. In this role, she focuses on operational excellence, stakeholder relationships, and growth supported by collaboration and innovation. The mandate is clear. Strengthen the systems that govern how work flows. Improve the quality and timeliness of outcomes for clients and partners. All of this is underpinned by a values foundation that puts people first and ensures the team is equipped to deliver at a high standard over the long term.

At WA Insurance Builders, the philosophy guides her priorities. Whether the context is claims, repairs, or service delivery, Emma looks for alignment between process and experience. She pays attention to how accountability is established and how information moves between teams. She brings forward-thinking strategies that reduce friction for customers while giving internal teams a workflow that is clear and predictable. The aim is to make excellence normal and to make improvement continuous. That is the practical definition of a culture that lasts in a competitive environment.

Leadership Style That Drives Outcomes

Emma’s leadership style is best described as principled, practical, and human. She sets clear expectations and protects the standards that matter, but she never loses sight of the person behind the role. She invests time in mentoring emerging leaders and in shaping environments where high performance feels achievable rather than exhausting. The foundation is psychological safety coupled with accountability. People know where they stand. They know what success looks like. They know that challenges will be met with support and that results will be celebrated in a way that builds momentum rather than spikes and dips.

Her approach to change management reflects the same balance. Change is not just a project plan. It is a behavior plan. Emma starts with the why and translates that into the daily how. She maps the processes that need simplification and addresses the handoffs that create confusion. She communicates with frequency and clarity so that teams are not left guessing. She measures progress with data that is relevant and easy to understand. Over time, this creates a rhythm that teams can trust. That rhythm becomes the engine for growth.

Influence Rooted in Integrity

Emma’s influence comes from consistency. She does what she says she will do. She treats people with respect. She aligns decisions with values that have been articulated and defended. This consistency builds trust internally and externally. Stakeholders experience reliability. Teams experience fairness. Leaders experience a peer who can challenge constructively and contribute solutions. Over the years, this has produced a network of colleagues and partners who see Emma as a steady hand in times of uncertainty and as a catalyst when performance must lift to a new standard.

The influence extends beyond outcomes and into culture. Emma takes a deliberate role in shaping the climate of a team. She promotes habits that reinforce accountability and gratitude. She models curiosity as a strength. She encourages honest feedback without fear. These signals travel quickly through a business. They tell people that excellence is expected and that humanity is protected. In environments shaped by this blend, performance becomes a shared commitment rather than a compliance exercise.

Resilience as a Leadership Asset

Resilience is often described in abstract terms, but in Emma’s life, it is concrete. It looks like facing the hardest news and choosing openness over isolation. It looks like returning to work with clearer priorities and deeper empathy. It looks like seeing each challenge as a chance to strengthen the system and the self. The experience of surviving cancer did not become a footnote. It became a lens through which leadership matured. Today, that lens helps her see risk with clarity and opportunity with humility. It keeps her grounded in the realities of human experience while driving toward ambitious goals.

The commercial impact of this resilience is real. Teams led with empathy tend to retain talent longer and collaborate more effectively. Processes designed by leaders who understand stress tend to reduce bottlenecks and errors. Stakeholder relationships improve when communication is honest and consistent. These are not abstract benefits. They show up in timelines, costs, and quality metrics. Emma’s career progression and current responsibilities speak to an ability to translate personal strength into business value.

Continuous Improvement as a Daily Practice

One of Emma’s defining practices is the discipline of continuous improvement. Rather than treat improvement as an event, she anchors it in routines. This can take the form of daily huddles focused on the most important blockers, weekly reviews that track leading indicators, and monthly retrospectives that connect insights to action. The thread that runs through each is a commitment to learning. Wins are documented so that they can be repeated. Misses are analyzed so that they become lessons. Over time, the organization becomes a learning system that compounds small gains into big results.

This practice also shapes how she thinks about innovation. For Emma, innovation is not just big leaps. It is the cumulative effect of small changes made consistently. That perspective keeps teams engaged because progress is visible and achievable. It also ensures that change does not outpace adoption. The organization stays aligned. The customer experience becomes more reliable. The internal experience becomes more satisfying. Excellence becomes a habit rather than a headline.

A Blueprint for Emerging Leaders

There is a blueprint in Emma’s story for those who are building careers in demanding sectors. Start with values and let them guide decisions when pressure rises. Invest in people because teams are the multipliers of leadership. Learn continuously and treat improvement as a practice. Communicate with clarity and frequency so that trust can grow. Face adversity with openness and allow it to refine purpose rather than reduce ambition. These are principles that travel across industries and roles.

For those moving into operations and excellence functions, Emma’s approach offers practical steps. Map the processes that matter most to customer outcomes. Identify the moments where work slows and where quality drops. Engage the people closest to the work to design improvements that will stick. Build routines that make the new way easy to adopt. Measure what matters and share the data in a way that is simple and actionable. Celebrate progress to reinforce momentum. Over time, these practices will produce systems that are both efficient and humane.

Mentorship as a Legacy of Impact

Beyond her professional achievements, Emma has dedicated over 15 years to mentoring as a way of paying forward the lessons she has learned. She has guided passionate and driven individuals building their careers, while also supporting underprivileged young people who needed encouragement, belief, and direction. Much of this work has been volunteer-based, reflecting her conviction that mentorship is one of the most powerful tools anyone can have in their “toolbox of life.”

For Emma, mentoring is not just about advice — it is about listening deeply, seeing potential where others may not, and empowering people to take confident steps toward their goals. This legacy of mentorship continues to shape the way she leads and the impact she creates in both business and community contexts.

Community, Courage, and Continuity

Community has been a constant theme in Emma’s journey. It held her during treatment, and it energizes her leadership now. She believes that transparency builds trust and that trust strengthens teams. This commitment to community shapes how she leads meetings, how she navigates conflict, and how she recognizes contributions. Courage shows up not only in the big moments but in the daily choice to speak with honesty and to act with integrity. Continuity comes from keeping the promises that create a legacy of reliability.

These three themes are closely connected in her current work. Community ensures that stakeholders feel heard and respected. Courage ensures that tough decisions are made without delay. Continuity ensures that the business delivers consistently, even as it improves. In combination, they create a competitive advantage that is difficult to copy because it is rooted in culture and character.

Why This Award Matters

Awards can be ceremonial or they can be instructive. This one is meant to send a signal to the industry. The title Most Inspiring Woman Leader in Business Excellence, 2025, recognizes more than tenure or titles. It recognizes a pattern of leadership that is resilient, ethical, and effective. Emma stands out for the way she integrates personal courage with professional rigor. Passion is not noise. Passion is purpose expressed through consistent action. It is the steady commitment to people and performance. It is the refusal to choose between care and standards. Emma’s career and her current impact embody this definition. She represents what the future of leadership should look like in business excellence and beyond.

Looking Ahead

The next phase of Emma’s career sits at the intersection of excellence and impact. At WA Insurance Builders and Restofix Services, there is meaningful work to be done in operational refinement and in stakeholder value. Emma is positioned to lead with the calm confidence that comes from experience and the fresh energy that comes from purpose clarified by adversity. The foundation is strong. The vision is compelling. The habits are in place. The result is a leader set to shape outcomes that matter for customers, teams, and partners.

As the industry navigates uncertainty and seeks dependable leadership, Emma offers a model that is both rigorous and compassionate. She reminds us that ambition and empathy can coexist. She proves that resilience can be taught by example. She shows that excellence is built day by day with practices that respect people and deliver results. For these reasons and more, the Ctoday Awards panel is proud to recognize Emma Mekisic as the Most Inspiring Woman Leader in Business Excellence, 2025.