This month's #SheIsSEMA Member Spotlight goes out to Yvette Kinkade of Track Day Club. Check out her Q&A with SEMA and the SBN below:
What is the best advice you have ever received?
You get what you give. Working hard to give more to everything in life and everyone I encounter, has proven it is returned tenfold.
This keeps me in the industry:
My passion is what drives me. A passion that comes from years in the motor trade, being a car gal from way back to now having great success as only woman operator of track days in Australia. My mission has always been to encourage participation in our motorsport community, particularly for women. Ensuring the avoidance of what I experienced ten years ago at my very first track day. It was memorable, unfortunately not in a good way. The landscape then was unwelcoming and particularly intimidating. Lucky for me, it enabled this exciting and purposeful mission that was the start of my fantastic journey. My approach has shifted industry goalposts and provided an accessible and inviting offering encouraging all levels of experience. I'm really proud of what I have achieved.
With the increase in women's participation at track days, I'm super excited to ramp things up in 2021; with the development of a five-part on track success program. This exciting and unique program will deliver education, mindset, empowerment and participation with a purpose-built framework for success with tools for women to discover a new and exciting sport for themselves. Included is a scholarship program soon to be announced that will offer one recipient the opportunity to participate at no cost.
On a Saturday, you can find me…
On track. Making sure my clients are experiencing the best track day experience possible and having fun. Or I could be at a race meeting, as Race Team Manager for Team Virag racing. A Father and Daughter race team competing across the eastern seaboard of Australia. Or I could be confidence coaching a client on track.
How do you prepare for an important meeting?
Prepared. I'm really big on being prepared. I adore a pen and paper. Ha! While its a bit old school I love have all the bullet points written down and ensure I know my subject matter before any meeting. Then throughout I'm the one who is continuously taking notes and jotting down ideas and concepts as they come to light.
If you could go to lunch with one industry leader, living or dead, who would it be?
I have two. Mary Barra, the Chairman and CEO of General Motors. Ms Barra understands the brand from the bottom up, the employees and the consumers and I would love to discuss insights about that journey. Jesse Combs is my other industry leader. It would have been amazing to have chatted with her and to have explored at such a young age how to foster such resilience and tenacity.
