BACKGROUND
David Wilson completed an electrical apprenticeship with Simpson Pope in 1973 and stayed in the trade for six years. He then moved into sales and training as an Area Manager for Hoover and progressed rapidly from there through roles as Marketing Manager for Spotless Ensign, Sales Manager for Anitech, State Manager for Austral Engineering Supplies, General Manager SA/NT for Skilled and General Manager SA for Kone Elevators. He is now Regional Manager for RecruitPack, a recruitment software service for the SME employer.

David has contributed to industry development by being a member of the Committee of Management of the Engineering Employers Association South Australia for 12 years, Chair of the Greater North Adelaide Regional Development Organisation (GNARDO) and Chair of the Western & Inner Northern Network for Economic Recovery (WINNER). He founded the Labour Hire Association of SA to improve safety across the industry. He became one of the inaugural Directors at Harness Racing SA when that industry was privatised.

David has always been passionate about training and development of staff and was a board member of EEASAGTS (Group Training Scheme) Board. At both Skilled and Kone he introduced apprentice programs coupled with further advanced training and development to provide long term succession plans in those organisations.

ROLE AND HOPES FOR ILF
David Wilson says, "I have been helped throughout my career by having access to training and development opportunities and am particularly grateful to Hoover for their in-house programs, to Skilled for the Mt Eliza Executive Management program and to Kone for sponsoring my MBA at UniSA. I want to now be part of an organisation that provides similar opportunities to people who, through their achievements, passion and presentation, have shown themselves to be potential leaders of the future.

I want the ILF to be held in high regard as a body that has sensibly identified people with great potential and provided them with significant and meaningful assistance. It will be highly satisfying sometime in the future to hear one, hopefully many, prominent, highly successful leaders acknowledge the assistance received from the ILF as a foundation for their career.

Key attributes I see in great leaders are the ability to articulate a clear vision that inspires people to follow, respect for people and the environment as the cornerstones of any sustainable vision, charisma, drive and a passion to achieve.

Some leaders who have inspired me include Steve Jobs, Andrew Carnegie, Mike Terlet, Rob Gerard and Frank Hargrave."