Renee Wootton Tomlin
Director of Partnerships
Renee Wootton Tomlin is an aerospace engineer, commercial pilot, and entrepreneur who brings a rare and compelling combination of technical expertise, commercial acumen, and deep aviation industry experience to her role as ASAFA's Director of Partnerships - Oceania. Recognised as AFR BOSS Young Executive of the Year and 7NEWS NSW/ACT Young Achiever of the Year, Renee is one of the most dynamic and multi-dimensional voices in the SAF space.
Renee is currently the Founder and CEO of New Era Energy, an Australian Indigenous-led early-stage energy venture focused on building the foundations for future fuels. The venture works upstream to align credible feedstocks, Indigenous governance, environmental outcomes, and commercial pathways for sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel, ensuring future fuel projects are designed to endure technically, commercially, and socially before capital deployment.
Prior to founding New Era Energy, Renee served as Director of New Market Development at LanzaJet, where she led global market expansion for the company's Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) technology, advancing SAF deployment across the UK, USA, Asia-Pacific, Brazil, Africa, and the Middle East. In this role, she designed go-to-market strategies tailored to regional policy, feedstock, infrastructure, and customer landscapes, forged government, airline, and industry partnerships to align policy and financing for SAF scale-up and represented LanzaJet at global forums shaping dialogue on SAF mandates, compliance, and future roadmaps.
Renee's aviation roots run deep, with more than 10 years at Qantas spanning a wide range of functions. As Group Manager of First Nations Engagement, she led the Qantas Group's First Nations Employment and Cultural Learning Strategy, driving attraction, engagement, and development for First Nations employees across the group. As Commercial Strategy and Planning Manager at Western Sydney Airport, she developed data-driven recommendations on competitive advantage and strategic positioning for executive leadership. Earlier, through the Qantas Graduate Program, she gained broad exposure across Long Haul Revenue Management, International Network Planning and Strategy, Group Fuel and Environment, and Airport Services — building a uniquely holistic understanding of airline operations. She also served as Fleet Technical Specialist at QantasLink, managing day-to-day fleet technical processes and regulatory compliance.
Beyond Qantas, Renee worked as a Project Engineer at CAE, managing technical milestones for upgrades on Australian military aircraft simulators, and conducted research at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a Visiting Student Researcher in Aerospace Engineering and Flight Optimisation, sponsored by the National Indigenous Space Academy.
Academically, Renee holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Aerospace from UNSW, with an Honours Thesis focused on Large Aircraft Fuel Temperature Modelling, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Flying from UNSW and a Frozen Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. She is also a participant of the Qantas Future Pilot Program.