Nicola Winter
Fighter pilot, astronaut candidate and crisis expert inspiring bold leadership under pressure.
Why book Nicola Winter for your next event
- Former German Air Force major and Eurofighter pilot sharing hands-on lessons in high-stakes decision-making.
- Astronaut candidate and “Visionary of the Year” who turns setbacks into momentum and ambition into action.
- Engineer, paramedic and lecturer delivering practical tools for crisis management and modern leadership.
Non-binding request for Nicola Winter
From Eurofighter cockpit to space ambitions – leadership that performs under pressure
Nicola Winter stands for courage, clarity and calm in the most demanding situations. As Germany’s second female fighter pilot and one of only three women to fly the Eurofighter, she has operated where performance truly matters. Today, she combines her experience as a military officer, engineer, project manager and lecturer in emergency and crisis management to deliver keynotes that are engaging, humorous and rich in practical insight. Whether on stage in Germany or internationally, in English or German, Nicola inspires audiences to pursue ambitious goals with grit, empathy and discipline – even when the pressure is on.
Nicola Winter – Pilot, Astronaut Candidate and Speaker
Nicola Winter (*1985) is a pilot, keynote speaker, engineer and university lecturer for emergency and crisis management. Her career reads like a blueprint for resilience and determination. As Germany’s second female fighter pilot ever and one of only three women to fly the coveted Eurofighter, she has proven herself in one of the most demanding environments imaginable.
She held the rank of major in the German Air Force and spent several years in the United States training student pilots. Her responsibilities included survival training and crisis management – preparing others to remain capable and focused in extreme situations. These experiences shaped her understanding of leadership, responsibility and teamwork under pressure.
After her active military career, Nicola gained further perspective through a tour in management consulting and industry. Today, she works as a project manager for technology demonstrations at the German Aerospace Center (DLR e. V.). At the same time, she lectures in emergency and crisis management at the Carl Remigius University and is working towards her commercial helicopter pilot’s license.
Her background is complemented by her training as a paramedic. This combination of aviation, engineering, crisis response and academia gives her a rare, fact-based and practical approach to leadership and decision-making. Nicola is also the mother of a young daughter – a role that adds yet another layer to her perspective on responsibility and priorities.
From Eurofighter to Space
In 2017, Nicola Winter was selected as an astronaut candidate by the private initiative “Die Astronautin”, together with Insa Thiele-Eich. Out of 400 competitors, she was chosen for a mission that aimed to send the first German woman into space. Although the project did not fully succeed due to a lack of financing, Nicola remains committed to her childhood dream of flying into space.
Her attitude is clear: there are many ways to achieve your goals. She enjoys being a pioneer and is open about her ambitions – whether the destination is the Moon, Mars or beyond. The same year, the Boston Consulting Group and Handelsblatt named her “Visionary of the Year”. The jury recognised her ability to continuously overcome technical, physical and social borders.
This spirit of exploration and perseverance runs through her keynotes. Nicola speaks about ambition without arrogance, about discipline without rigidity and about passion grounded in preparation.
Leadership and Crisis Management in Practice
In her engaging, enlightening and humorous presentations, Nicola Winter shares what it means to perform when every second counts. She openly recounts how she was initially considered too short to become a pilot – and how she still found her way into the cockpit of a fast jet. Her story illustrates that external limitations do not define the outcome; mindset and persistence do.
Drawing on her time as a military officer, she explains why modern, empathetic leadership is essential, even in highly hierarchical environments. She demonstrates how leaders can create trust, clarity and direction, especially in critical moments.
Audiences gain practical tools and best practice examples on topics such as:
Staying calm and capable in crises
Making sound decisions under pressure
Managing setbacks and using them as learning opportunities
Keeping focus amid complexity and daily to-dos
Building resilient, high-performing teams
Nicola combines facts with personal anecdotes from the cockpit, from international training missions and from her work in crisis management. The result is a keynote that is both inspiring and directly applicable to everyday leadership challenges.
Book Nicola Winter for Your Event
When you book Nicola Winter for your event, you bring a speaker to the stage who embodies performance, responsibility and courage. She speaks online, throughout Germany and worldwide, in English and German. As a sought-after panelist and expert, she is also available for workshops where she dives deeper into leadership, crisis management and team performance.
Her motto sums up her philosophy: “With grit, empathy, discipline, passion and a little bit of luck, we can make it anywhere – even to the stars!”
Nicola Winter shows your audience how to pursue ambitious goals with clarity and determination. She proves that setbacks are part of the journey, that true leadership is grounded in empathy and that calm focus is a competitive advantage. For organisations navigating change, complexity and uncertainty, her perspective from aviation and space offers powerful inspiration and concrete strategies for action.
Keynotes
Keynote by Nicola Winter:
New Leadership
Even fighter pilots are led with empathy and respect these days – a new understanding of leadership is more necessary than ever.
Outdated management cultures and hierarchies encourage mistakes in our work life that can have profound consequences. Using concrete and tangible practical examples from her time as an officer and pilot in the Air Force, as a consultant at McKinsey and from her research, Nicola shows her audience how empathy and respect as well as trust and clear communication help to minimize mistakes and promote performance significantly to achieve corporate goals and to sustainably promote the satisfaction of your entire workforce.
Topics that she is particularly enthusiastic about in this domain are: "Communication under pressure", "Decision-making in critical situations", "Sharp Focus on key aspects ", "Leadership at eye level" and "Self-management".
Keynote by Nicola Winter:
Empowerment
If you want to aim high, you also must learn how to deal with obstacles and setbacks - a selfconfident appearance, respecting your own limits, unerring multitasking and prioritizing as well as a focus on the right and important things are essential.
In the implementation of our dreams and goals, we often encounter obstacles. How do you manage to fully develop your potential as a person and as a company, to assert yourself against the competition, to reinvent yourself again and again, to gather courage for the next departure, to keep track of your busy schedule and not to be too single-minded despite all your ambitions? How do you not forget what really matters in life? With a lot of passion, Nicola describes to her audience how she keeps a healthy work-life balance with all her to-dos, goals and dreams, which motivational techniques help her and how she built up healthy selfconfidence and self-esteem to push her limits keep and at the same time give everything.
Keynote by Nicola Winter:
Risk and crisis management
Eventually, every company and every person will find itself in a critical situation - it is then crucial to have proven, trained strategies on hand to master these challenges. This includes routine risk analysis, precise crisis communication, focusing on the essentials and quick decision-making.
After over a decade as a fighter pilot, Nicola learnt everything you can about stress, risk, crisis and the path to success on the world's fastest jets. If seconds can make the difference between life and death, critical decisions must be taken in the most expeditious, yet well-calculated manner.
Your audience will learn that detailed and targeted preparation for crises is crucial and which proven strategies let you survive the day when you are in the middle of a crisis.
Nicola Winter Showreel
Watch Nicola Winter in action!
5 ways military leadership can empower your parenting | Nicola Winter | TEDxUniBw
Watch Nicola Winter in action!
