Nicola Winter is a pilot, keynote speaker, engineer and university lecturer in emergency and crisis management. After a decade as a fighter pilot, she knows about stress, risk, crises and the path to success in the fastest jets in the world. When seconds make the difference between life and death, momentous decisions under time pressure have to be made in a properly thought-out manner.

In her entertaining lectures and keynotes, Nicola Winter speaks in a varied, informative and also humorous way. Because she was actually too short to become a pilot. But she nevertheless found her way into the fighter jet and her greatness as a leader.

Using concrete and tangible practical examples from her time as an officer and pilot in the German Armed Forces. As a consultant at McKinsey and from her research, Nicola Winter shows her audience how empathy and respect as well as trust and good communication help to minimise mistakes. But also to promote performance as much as possible, to achieve corporate goals and to sustainably consolidate the satisfaction of the entire workforce.

Lecture topics by Nicola Winter

• New Leadership & Teamship: Leadership by Mach 1.
• Crisis, risk and stress management
• Error culture and debriefings – resilience, courage and a focus on risk

Together with Insa Thiele-Eich, Nicola Winter was selected as an astronaut trainee of the initiative “Die Astronautin” in 2017. Therefore she prevailed against 400 female competitors. The initiative wanted to put a German woman into space for the first time, but ultimately failed due to financial strength. Nicola did not let this irritate her. She is still continuing to pursue her childhood dream of flying into space. And she wants to make it through the ESA’s astronaut selection process. In 2017, the Boston Consulting Group and Handelsblatt named Nicola Winter “Thought Leader of the Year”. In 2022, she beat more than 22,500 applicants in the ESA selection process and is now part of the astronaut reserve.

Nicola Winter was a fighter pilot in the German Armed Forces for over a decade. She was one of only three women in the air force to pilot the Eurofighter. In the USA, she trained young pilots herself for several years – including survival training and crisis management – and held the rank of major. This was followed by a stopover in management consultancy and industry. Today she works as a project manager for technology demonstrations at the German Aerospace Center (DLR e. V.). Furthermore she works as a lecturer in emergency and crisis management at Carl Remigius University. She earned a doctorate in space science and a pilot’s licence to become a professional helicopter pilot. Nicola is also involved as a paramedic and is the mother of a young daughter.

In addition to her successes in the German Armed Forces and in spaceflight, Nicola Winter is also involved as a paramedic. She is currently working towards becoming a rescue helicopter pilot.