Acknowledgement of Country

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation

About CSIRO Growth

CSIRO is Australia's national science agency – our purpose is to solve Australia's greatest challenges! 

CSIRO Growth is responsible for enabling CSIRO's business to operate in an integrated way across the organisation with a focus on customers, collaboration and commercialisation. We enable maximum impact for the nation underpinned by a healthy and sustainable financial platform. 

Growth works across our Business Development and Commercialisation, Global, Strategy and Science Impact and Policy functions, connecting our leaders and business units to market opportunities and challenges.

CSIRO's research activities are focussed on six national challenges that require multidisciplinary and coordinated responses with industry, government and the broader innovation community.

In meeting these challenges, we are looking for an experienced professional to build the customer relationship and value-adding project pipeline to enable our ten business units to work seamlessly together to deliver integrated solutions. 

The Opportunity

• Lead a team of 80+ in driving Business Development, pipeline health and customer relationships
• Lead strategic Executive level engagement with Business, Investors & Government locally and globally
• Create & deliver a one-CSIRO go to Market capability

The Director, Customer is responsible for CSIRO's customer engagement through an embedded network of professionals across all CSIRO's business units. The role is part of the Growth and CSIRO leadership teams reporting to the Executive Director. It is responsible for pipeline health, customer engagement, business development, and one-CSIRO market opportunities.  

The Customer team comprises more than 80 professionals who enable the business units to achieve impact and financial targets through opportunity development and management, pipeline management, managing customer relationships, and creating cross-organisational customer opportunities.?To ensure success, the role leads and coaches the business development directors of each business unit to build high-performing, coherent, and agile teams capable of delivering a range of business development activities both within the business units and horizontally across CSIRO. 

Customer engagement is critical to the success of CSIRO's Corporate Plan. The role will support the development of customer engagement strategies and programs, growth opportunity frameworks, stakeholder mapping, (and other tools). As well as leading the business development teams to evaluate customers, develop strategic customer opportunities, grow the depth and breadth of CSIRO's customer portfolio, and assist the organisation in delivering on its strategy. 

The Director, Customer, will lead, design, facilitate, and execute large-scale enterprise-wide transactions and strategic customer relationships in collaboration with business unit leaders and sector executives. The Director will work with each business unit and sector to develop a future-focused business development plan for each sector by prioritising and delivering against CSIRO's Corporate Plan.  A critical component will also be partnering closely with other Growth teams and CSIRO enterprise functions to deliver seamlessly and agilely.     

The successful candidate will have:

A track record in managing business development and customers at the interface between science, industry and government or within other large, complex solutions-orientated enterprises. Experience in general management and operating at the highest levels at CEO and Board level will be highly valued. Candidates will have excellent: 

• People leadership – development, deployment, coaching, guidance and change management
• Customer-first – connecting diverse skills and people to drive impact and deliver customer value 
• Stakeholder management – connecting and working across the organisation 
• Industry best practice – garnering and fostering knowledge sharing and education across the organisation by supporting 'communities of practice' and developing new business models 
• Strategic advice – influencing and providing high-quality strategic advice to senior leadership. 

To be considered you will need:

• Relevant degree or experience in conjunction with demonstrated achievement in senior advisory and managerial roles, ideally with postgraduate managerial qualifications. 
• Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with client groups to achieve and grow Business Development impact with revenue, focusing on return on investment to maximise organisational results in line with CSIRO's Corporate Plan.
• Demonstrated ability to proactively identify, build and develop a portfolio of key external commercial relationships and opportunities to support the delivery of impact objectives and meet current and future revenue goals aligned with CSIRO's Corporate Plan.
• Demonstrated recent ability to deliver end-to-end conversion of strategic business development and commercial opportunities with a focus on driving and supporting efficient commercial contracting and leadership of multidisciplinary teams.
• Demonstrated experience in building and maintaining strong professional and collaborative working relationships across a wide range of disciplines at all levels of the organisation and externally, proactively seeking and influencing multiple key stakeholders within a complex and ambiguous environment to achieve a successful outcome.
• Demonstrated experience in building a high-performing team, providing coaching and development opportunities across the breadth and depth of a complex team that delivers high standards in service delivery. As well as technical output, proven ability to hold a team accountable to specified results, and creating a culture that fosters creative problem-solving, continuous improvement and knowledge sharing.

Location: Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane - Other CSIRO Sites considered
Salary: Attractive salary package available
Tenure: Specified term of 3 years
Reference: 91242

For full details about this role please review the Position Description

Eligibility

Applications for this position are open to Australian/New Zealand Citizens, Australian Permanent Residents or you must either hold, or be able to obtain, a valid working visa for the duration of the specified term. Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.

Flexible Working Arrangements

We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work. 

Diversity and Inclusion

We are working hard to recruit people representing the diversity across our society, and ensure that all our people feel supported to do their best work and feel empowered to let their ideas flourish. 

About CSIRO

At CSIRO Australia's national science agency, we solve the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. We put the safety and wellbeing of our people above all else and earn trust everywhere because we only deal in facts. We collaborate widely and generously and deliver solutions with real impact. 

CSIRO is committed to values-based leadership to inspire performance and unlock the potential of our people.

Join us and start creating tomorrow today!

How to Apply

Please note the recruitment of this position is under the management of Odgers Berndtson. For more information and to apply, please go to www.odgers.com/87844

In your application you will need provide your CV and a cover letter outlining your motivation and relevant capabilities and experience you could bring to this role. 

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