Wool has been a part of Emily Shields’ life since she was born.   Raised on a mixed farming Merino property in North East Victoria, Australia, Emily begrudgingly started assisting her father in the wool section at the local A&P show at age 14.

After leaving school in 2014 and completing a degree in Law & Arts at Monash University, Melbourne, Emily was searching for ways to earn money in the University holidays, so began a Certificate in Wool Classing at Melbourne Polytechnic, with no plans of pursuing a career in wool.

Bitten by the wool industry bug at that point, Emily applied to a Wool Marketing Traineeship with Fox & Lille Rural and secured the job following a recommendation from well-respected NSW Stock Agent and Wool Broker, Adrian Flint.

While continuing her formal education part-time over the next 2 years, Emily held a number of roles with Fox & Lillie, including Room 2 Auctioneer at the Brooklyn Wool Selling Centre, Melbourne, and gained her first experiences of the commercial wool processing industry in this role. 

In 2019, WoolWorks were lucky enough to recruit Emily for a new role of Process Co-ordinator, located at our Timaru site.  Part of this role involved learning all aspects of administration involved in the scouring process.

Now settled in Timaru, Emily moved into the newly created role of Continuous Improvement Manager with WoolWorks South and with the support of the WoolWorks Group, graduated from Deakin University with a BCom (Food & Agribusiness) in 2022.

We congratulate Emily on her success with her education and appreciate the knowledge and experience she brings to her role.

Not bad for someone who didn’t want a career in wool.