He kōrero mō mātou | About Watercare
Ki te ora te wai, ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tangata
When the water is healthy, the land and the people are healthy
Now is an exciting time to join Watercare, we're planning to spend $14 billion over the next 10 years to ensure we can continue to support our growing city in a climate-resilient way. When you average that out, that's an investment of $3.8 million every day!
He whakamārama mō te tūranga mahi | About the role
This is a rare opportunity for an experienced improvement and stakeholder leader to lead our Growth and Development Improvement Programme on a two-year fixed-term contract, based in Newmarket.
This high-profile, role sits at the centre of Watercare's relationships with Auckland's development sector. Working closely with developers, council representatives, iwi, industry partners and internal teams, you will help shape and deliver improvements that strengthen trust, enhance collaboration, and improve how Watercare supports Auckland's growth.
Combining strategic thinking, stakeholder engagement and programme leadership, you will identify barriers, uncover opportunities for improvement, and bring together diverse stakeholders to deliver meaningful, lasting change. You will lead multiple workstreams focused on improving customer experience, governance, processes, communication, and organisational capability across Watercare's growth and development functions.
Success in this role will require exceptional relationship-building skills, strong commercial and strategic thinking, and the ability to navigate complex environments where outcomes depend on influence, collaboration and shared ownership.
This is an opportunity to make a lasting impact on how Watercare partners with Auckland's development community and enables sustainable growth for the region.
Key responsibilities include:
- Lead the planning, governance and delivery of the Growth and Development Improvement Programme
- Build strong, trusted relationships with developers, industry stakeholders, Auckland Council, iwi and strategic partners
- Understand the end-to-end developer experience and identify opportunities to improve processes, communication and outcomes
- Lead engagement initiatives that strengthen collaboration between Watercare and the development sector
- Facilitate conversations across technical, operational, commercial and customer-facing teams to align priorities and solutions
- Drive multiple improvement workstreams from concept through to implementation
Ngā pūkenga e rapu nei mātou | About you
You are highly collaborative and skilled at building connections. You can engage confidently with developers, understand complex challenges, identify opportunities for improvement and bring people together to turn ideas into action.
You may have built your career in programme leadership, stakeholder engagement, strategic communications, business transformation, urban development, infrastructure strategy, customer experience or a related field. What matters most is your ability to build trust, influence outcomes, and deliver meaningful improvements in complex environments.
You are comfortable operating at both a strategic and operational level, working with senior leaders, technical specialists and external stakeholders to create alignment and deliver results.
Your skills and experience include:
- Significant experience in programme leadership, stakeholder engagement, communications, strategy, transformation or a related discipline
- Exceptional relationship-building skills and the ability to establish credibility with a diverse range of stakeholders
- Experience working with developers, infrastructure providers, local government, planning, property or growth-related sectors
- Strong facilitation and influencing skills, with the ability to bring people together around shared objectives
- The ability to work comfortably within technical environments and engage confidently with engineers, planners, developers and subject matter experts
Ideally, you will also bring:
- Experience within the water, wastewater, utilities, or infrastructure sectors
- Experience in the growth related service delivery
- Experience managing high-value programmes
- Professional programme management certification (PgMP, MSP or equivalent)
- Experience working with local government, developers, iwi, and community stakeholders
Ngā hua mōu | What's in it for you
We offer a competitive salary and staff benefits package including:
• Training and development opportunities
• Employee discounts at a range of large retailers
Me pēhea te tono mai | How to Apply
Come and join our team! If you are looking for an exciting career opportunity with a fantastic team then please apply online today - careers.watercare.co.nz.
Skills Required
- Process change focused qualification, Project Management, or related discipline
- At least 10 years' experience leading engineering and process improvement programmes
- Proven success delivering complex, multi-stakeholder infrastructure or transformation programmes
- Strong programme governance, planning, risk management, and delivery capability
- Experience working closely with executive leadership teams, boards, and senior decision-makers
- Exceptional communication, presentation, and stakeholder engagement skills
- Strong commercial acumen, including business case development and financial management
- Knowledge of New Zealand's planning, regulatory, and infrastructure environment
- Ability to build consensus, influence outcomes, and drive delivery across organisational boundaries
- Experience within the water, wastewater, utilities, or infrastructure sectors
- Experience in growth related service delivery and managing high-value programmes
- Professional programme management certification (PgMP, MSP or equivalent)
- Experience working with local government, developers, iwi, and community stakeholders
What We Do
At Watercare we’re proud to provide a lifeline service to the people of Auckland, while protecting the environment for future generations. Every day we provide the highest quality drinking water to 1.7 million Aucklanders, and take it away again once it’s been used in the sink or flushed down the loo. Without using chemicals, we treat wastewater to a very high standard and safely return it to the environment. We also plan for new and upgraded infrastructure far into the future to ensure we can meet the needs of our fast-growing city. We operate assets worth more than $9 billion – but it’s our people who are our most valuable assets. Our staff are passionate, motivated and trustworthy people who are the leaders in their fields. They’re not afraid of a challenge and are constantly looking for new ways of improving our processes and the service we offer our customers. If this sounds like you, please visit our careers centre to see our job vacancies and be notified of future opportunities: https://careers.watercare.co.nz
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