Dr. Tulinda Larsen

Dr. Tulinda Larsen is an economist, aviation and aerospace executive, manufacturing advisor, and experienced speaker whose career spans more than four decades. Her work has crossed aviation, aerospace, Advanced Air Mobility, manufacturing, economic development, workforce development, higher education, and nonprofit leadership, giving her an unusual ability to connect economic and industry trends with the practical challenges facing organizations and their leaders.

Dr. Larsen began her career as an economist and built extensive leadership experience in commercial aviation, including serving as Vice President of the Regional Airline Association and President of the Alaska Air Carriers Association. Over the course of her career, she has worked at the intersection of transportation, technology, economics, public policy, and business strategy.

Her more recent work has focused extensively on Advanced Air Mobility and manufacturing. She has worked with emerging aviation technologies and the economic ecosystems required to support them, including infrastructure, manufacturing, workforce, and community development. In manufacturing, she has been deeply involved in workforce development and in creating new pathways connecting employers, technical education, and previously overlooked sources of talent.

Dr. Larsen is also an educator and mentor. She served as an adjunct professor with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide and has held leadership roles in numerous professional, industry, and community organizations. Throughout her career, she has used professional associations not simply as networking opportunities, but as a parallel career-development track, taking on increasingly significant leadership roles and using those experiences to expand her knowledge, visibility, and impact.

She holds a Doctor of Management from the University of Maryland Global Campus and both a BA and MA in Economics from The George Washington University.

Speaking Topics

Economic Outlook: What Leaders Should Watch

Dr. Larsen brings an economist’s perspective to the forces shaping businesses, industries, and their customers. Rather than delivering a generic economic forecast, she researches each audience and customizes the presentation around the economic indicators, industry trends, markets, and issues most relevant to them. The result is a practical economic outlook designed to help leaders understand what is changing, why it matters, and what they should be watching next.

Advanced Air Mobility: The Next Transportation Revolution

Advanced Air Mobility is creating an entirely new transportation ecosystem. Dr. Larsen helps audiences understand electric and autonomous aircraft, emerging business models, infrastructure requirements, manufacturing and supply-chain opportunities, workforce needs, and the economic implications for communities and regions. Presentations can be customized around specific industries, markets, or major events, including the potential role of emerging transportation technologies surrounding the 2034 Winter Olympics.

The Future of Manufacturing: Workforce, Technology, and Talent

Manufacturing is being reshaped by workforce shortages, rapidly evolving technology, and changing skill requirements. Dr. Larsen tailors this presentation to the audience and the manufacturing sectors they represent, examining the economic, workforce, technology, and competitive trends that matter most to their businesses. Drawing on her direct work with manufacturers and workforce-development initiatives, she also explores technical education partnerships, new talent pipelines, neurodiverse talent, and other approaches to building the manufacturing workforce of the future.

Career Advancement Is Not a Ladder

Successful careers rarely develop in a straight line. Drawing on more than four decades of leadership, career changes, calculated risks, setbacks, and reinvention, Dr. Larsen uses the image of a corporate “jungle gym” to show how careers actually develop, sometimes upward, sometimes sideways, and sometimes by creating an opportunity that did not previously exist.

This presentation is connected to her forthcoming book, Six-Word Lessons from the Corporate Jungle Gym: 100 Lessons for Leading, Growing, and Reinventing Your Career. Designed particularly for accomplished professionals in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, it offers practical lessons about creating opportunities, building visibility, using professional organizations to accelerate career development, taking calculated risks, reinventing yourself, and continuing to grow throughout a long career.

Across all four areas, Dr. Larsen’s approach is consistent: know the audience first. She researches the organization, industry, and participants and builds her presentation around the issues that matter to them rather than delivering the same presentation to every audience.