• Winner of the Rising Star category: Madeline Bonfini of RD Consulting.
    Winner of the Rising Star category: Madeline Bonfini of RD Consulting.
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With less than one week left until the close of entries for ADM’s Women in Defence Awards (WIDA) 2022, ADM is taking a look back at the winners of our 2021 awards across nine categories.

The Rising Star category recognises the defence community’s most outstanding female individual aged under 30 years.

The 2021 winner was Madeline Bonfini of RD Consulting.

Madeline’s overarching role with Army is delivering communication strategy and advice. She is the communication team lead for Career Management - Army, where she has worked in collaboration with the branch to overhaul its communication channels as part of a broader all-encompassing communication strategy revamp. She delivers a broad range of communication products and services, including design work, writing articles, driving the use of ForceNet, producing videos for internal and external audiences, supporting the Director General and Future Plans team in committee presentations and enhancing SharePoint to establish a consistent internal platform for increased transparency and accessibility of information.

A Special Commendation was also awarded to Private Victoria Waid of the Australian Army.

Joining Army in 2018 as a reservist, whilst undergoing her initial training, PTE Waid was concurrently completing a double degree in a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Global Studies. She has participated in a range of courses and training opportunities including Exercise Talisman Sabre. Victoria speaks publicly about her time in the Australian Army Reserves at every opportunity through a number of organisations.

The other finalists in the WIDA 2021 Rising Star category were: Lieutenant Commander Rebecca Avila of Royal Australian Navy, Bilin Zhou of Boeing Defence Australia and Olivia Blight of Rheinmetall Defence Australia.

Entries for the WIDA 2022 awards close on Tuesday 17th May. Submit your nomination here, or contact Associate Publisher Kylie Leonard for more information.

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