Liz McConaghy

Liz McConaghy is a former RAF Chinook crewmember, bestselling author, and resilience speaker who transforms how organisations approach mental health, leadership, and high performance. As the longest-serving female crewmember on the Chinook Fleet across 17 years, she completed two Iraq deployments and ten tours to Afghanistan, and was recently named Defence Discount Service Inspirational Woman of the Year. Through her Amazon bestseller "Chinook Crew Chick" and her powerful lived experience of overcoming PTSD, she equips teams with practical tools to build psychological resilience, navigate adversity, and create cultures where people show up authentically for one another, translating military-grade teamwork principles into lasting organisational change.

At just 19 years old, Liz McConaghy walked through the gates of RAF Cranwell on her birthday and began a career that would span 17 years, making her the longest-serving female crewmember on the Royal Air Force Chinook Fleet. From a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland, she became the youngest aircrew member to deploy to Iraq at 21 and spent four years as the sole female crewman on the Chinook wing. Her service included two deployments to Iraq and ten tours to Helmand, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Herrick, placing her at the sharp end of military operations where split-second decisions meant the difference between life and death. These experiences offered her an unfiltered perspective on the realities of war, from dodging bullets to saving lives, and shaped the foundations of her understanding about what it takes to perform under extreme pressure.

After leaving the RAF in 2019, Liz faced her own battle with PTSD, culminating in a suicide attempt in August 2020 that forced her to confront the psychological wounds carried from the battlefield. Through the Veterans' Mental Health care system, she channelled her recovery into writing, first through poetry and later a full autobiography. In September 2022, she published "Chinook Crew Chick," which reached Amazon Bestseller status within three weeks and candidly recounts the highs and lows of forces life with both humour and raw honesty. Her work as a speaker and mental health ambassador has since taken her across continents, from addressing 2,500 engineers at Eplan in Munich on precision and systems thinking, to working with the Irish Football Association on their UEFA Pro Diploma programme, and speaking at the IBIS Worldwide International Summit in Vienna. Recently named Defence Discount Service Inspirational Woman of the Year, she continues to expand her reach through her upcoming podcast "The World Class Code" and future projects scheduled for 2027.

Liz helps organisations translate military-grade principles of resilience, teamwork and high performance into practical frameworks that create lasting cultural change. She demonstrates how the behaviours that separate good teams from exceptional ones are fundamentally about people and how they choose to show up for each other, whether on an engineering floor, in a boardroom, or on a football pitch. Through her lived experience of navigating both combat zones and personal crisis, she equips audiences with authentic tools to build psychological resilience, manage adversity, and foster environments where individuals feel safe to be vulnerable and perform at their best. Her message proves that PTSD and trauma need not define identity but can serve as chapters that impart invaluable lessons, offering hope to anyone seeking to rebuild their pathway forward while creating meaningful impact in their professional and personal lives.