Ksenija Stanic-Colic
Rail Specialist, GM Rail, Australia
Years in the industry: 25
KSENIJA Stanic-Colic has built a distinguished career in the railway sector for more than quarter of a century, progressing from technical engineering roles to senior leadership positions responsible for governance, asset integrity, reliability, and strategic infrastructure performance across heavy-haul and commuter networks. Her career reflects sustained technical excellence, strong leadership capability, and a long-term commitment to improving rail engineering standards and operational outcomes.
Ksenija began her career with Croatian Railways, working in track maintenance and smaller infrastructure upgrade projects. This early experience established a strong technical foundation in rail geometry, track condition assessment, and maintenance practices that would later underpin her expertise in complex heavy-haul systems. After relocating to Australia, she advanced through increasingly senior engineering roles with organisations including WorleyParsons, Georgiou Group, and the Public Transport Authority of Western Australia, contributing to major infrastructure and heavy-haul projects.
A defining period of her career was at BHP Western Australia Iron Ore, where she held several senior positions including superintendent, reliability engineering, and superintendent, governance and technical stewardship. In these roles, she was responsible for engineering governance, technical assurance, maintenance optimisation, and long-term asset performance across one of Australia’s most heavily-used rail networks. Her leadership combined operational discipline with strategic thinking, ensuring engineering standards evolved to meet increasing axleloads and throughput demands.
One of Ksenija’s most significant achievements was leading rail alignment re-baselining initiatives to address long-term geometry degradation caused by changing operational conditions. Recognising that traditional maintenance methods were no longer sufficient, she championed an evidence-based approach using actual geometry surveys rather than historic design assumptions. This improved maintenance effectiveness, reduced operational risk, and enhanced long-term track performance, demonstrating both technical innovation and practical problem-solving capability.
More recently, in senior leadership roles at Roy Hill and GM Rail, Ksenija has overseen multidisciplinary engineering teams responsible for critical rail assets supporting large-scale mining operations. Her leadership style is widely recognised for combining technical authority with collaboration, mentoring, and capability development. She has consistently supported graduate and early-career engineers while promoting professional standards as a fellow of Engineers Australia.
Ksenija’s contribution extends beyond individual projects through her participation in industry forums, technical conferences, and mentoring initiatives. She is recognised not only for improving rail safety, governance, and asset reliability, but also for inspiring others through inclusive leadership, professional integrity, and a commitment to continuous improvement across the rail industry.
Jasmine Manley
Accounts Payable Manager, Anacostia Rail Holdings, United States
Years in the industry: 11
TRANSFORMING rail finance through automation and inclusive leadership has become a defining hallmark of Jasmine Manley’s career. With more than 20 years in accounting operations, she has consistently demonstrated the ability to modernise complex financial systems while strengthening collaboration across organisations and industry networks.
In her current position, Jasmine oversees full-cycle accounts payable operations across corporate functions and seven subsidiary railways. Her leadership has made a notable impact on streamlining high-volume, multi-entity financial operations. By spearheading the implementation of automation platforms such as AvidXchange and PayMode-X, she helped reduce processing delays, improve audit readiness, strengthen compliance, and enhance vendor relationships. Her focus on standardisation and scalable processes has reinforced operational continuity while aligning financial operations with broader business goals.
What distinguishes Jasmine is her ability to combine technical expertise with a people-centred leadership style. She is recognised as a collaborative and service-driven leader who develops talent by promoting accountability, continuous improvement, and confidence within her teams. Her approach consistently balances immediate operational needs with long-term organisational improvement.
Her influence extends well beyond corporate finance. As president of the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Railway Business Women, Jasmine has played a key role in increasing member engagement, strengthening industry relationships, and elevating the visibility of women in rail. One of her most notable achievements was leading the organisation’s 100-year anniversary celebration in 2025.
Jasmine’s commitment to advancing the rail industry is also reflected in her work with the League of Railway Women and Operation Lifesaver, where she contributes to professional development initiatives and safety education. Through her involvement with the National Association of Black Accountants, she also supports mentorship and career development opportunities for under-represented professionals. In future, Jasmine aims to expand her impact as a strategic financial leader by driving innovation, modernisation, and inclusivity across the rail sector.
Edelene Ee Si Ya
Vice-President, Building and Facilities, and Deputy Head, Network Systems Maintenance, SMRT Trains, Singapore
Years in the industry: 18
A systems engineer who reshaped how Singapore’s metro network thinks about reliability, workforce capability and long-term resilience, Edelene Ee Si Ya has emerged as one of the rail industry’s most forward-looking operational leaders.
Since joining SMRT in 2008 as part of its inaugural management trainee cohort, Edelene has built a career defined by leadership across a wide range of rail engineering disciplines, including power supply systems, signalling, communications and facilities maintenance. Her early exposure to rail operations, engineering and corporate services cultivated a systems-thinking mindset that continues to underpin her leadership approach today: viewing railway engineering not as an isolated technical discipline, but as an interconnected operational ecosystem.
Among her most significant contributions to date has been leading the transition from interval-based to condition-based maintenance for SMRT’s power supply systems. By championing advanced monitoring technology such as partial discharge testing, dissolved gas analysis and UPS battery monitoring, she helped establish a more predictive and data-driven asset management framework that contributed to improved network reliability and achievement of key reliability targets.
Edelene’s ability to combine technical depth with organisational transformation became even more evident during her tenure as director of signalling and communications maintenance. She negotiated a long-term OEM support partnership with Thales that delivered multi-million-dollar lifecycle savings, reduced repair times and mitigated future obsolescence risks. Simultaneously, she led workforce restructuring and cross-training initiatives that strengthened operational flexibility without increasing the headcount, while maintaining workforce morale and operational continuity.
In her current position, Edelene leads large multidisciplinary teams spanning engineering operations, maintenance strategy, asset management and workforce development across the SMRT network. Her leadership style is strongly people-centred, with a consistent focus on building technical capability pipelines, mentoring younger engineers and developing resilient future leaders.
Edelene’s future-orientated outlook means she is actively driving transformation initiatives involving AI, robotics, smart sensors, predictive analytics and integrated diagnostics platforms to modernise maintenance and facilities operations. At the same time, she advocates strongly for sustainability, diversity and international knowledge exchange, representing Singapore in regional industry forums and collaborative rail programmes.
Part 1 of Women in Rail Award 2026 can be found here
Part 3 of Women in Rail Award 2026 can be found here
Part 4 of Women in Rail Award 2026 can be found here
