• Facilitate growth & delivery of quality children's services across 61 sites
• Strategic leadership role to achieve optimal performance
• Suit candidates with a mix of corporate and NFP backgrounds
  

The Organisation

Early Childhood Management Services (ECMS) is a children’s services organisation with 750 dedicated staff that have been providing high quality and inclusive early learning and care for children, families and communities for 25 years. With 61 kindergartens and childcare centres ECMS influences the lives of 6,500 children across Victoria each week. Every ECMS kindergarten and childcare centre is designed to reflect the needs of its local community and families, ensuring that children thrive in life.

ECMS’s purpose is to “foster lifelong learning” for children, their families, our team, and our partners.

Benefits & Culture

• Work with dedicated colleagues who are committed to the early childhood sector
• Based in a sought-after location in Northcote with a flexible, high-trust working culture
• Professional development opportunities and space to grow your career
• Progressive leadership team with collective accountability for overall culture and performance
• Play a leading role in transforming an organisation to have a greater impact on children.

The Role

After strengthening the foundations of the organisation over the last two years, ECMS is now able to look to the future and shape the way ahead, this comes from a combination of working to a multi-year strategic plan and putting their values to work.

Reporting to the CEO, Andrew Hume, the Director of Corporate Services is positioned to support and influence the direction and performance of the organisation; enabling the organisation to move to its next phase. There is optimism and momentum behind the strategy, and you will play a leading role to make the change happen.

Working in collaboration with the executive team, you will be responsible for leading a diverse team and outsourced partners to deliver fit-for-purpose support to 61 services, provide commercial insights, and implement strategic projects that enable ECMS to operate in a contemporary and inclusive manner, ensuring children, families and internal stakeholders receive the best possible service and outcomes.

This strategic and commercial position will also lead all aspects of financial performance to ensure a strong financial position for ECMS moving forward and will encompass:

• The provision of proactive strategic counsel on performance and opportunities
• Delivering a commercial model informed by financial models and data
• Overseeing the internal control environment to ensure the integrity of financial statements
• Providing Board and Executive reporting that focuses on insights that lead to clear actions
• Driving the budgeting and reforecasting processes engaging with internal stakeholders
• Championing evidence-informed decisions and managing financial risk with integrity
• Leading the Finance, Business Analysis, Payroll and Property & Procurement teams (10 FTE)

Skills Required

You have a successful track record in senior financial leadership and operational roles with a high level of commercial acumen, in particular the ability to quickly understand drivers for performance. With an accounting qualification such as CA or CPA, you are more than your qualification: you are a strategic thinker, a leader of people and a change agent. You are energised by a broad remit and you take pride in the achievement of common goals.

You are able to demonstrate:

• Experience working as part of an executive team, exhibiting values based leadership.
• Experience in developing highly functional teams with an understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses.
• Expertise in leading operations and accounting, analytics & reporting
• In depth knowledge of financial accounting, governance frameworks & regulatory obligations

Importantly you must be able to lead through coaching, be curious and understand the importance of cultivating a positive culture.

If you are an experienced business leader and want to use your financial expertise and people leadership skills to help deliver high quality early years learning to the Victorian community, please apply by submitting a cover letter addressing the skills required and a current resume. Alternatively, please call Anna Skeels on 03 8080 8976 to discuss further.

Please note there is no formal closing date for this role, if you are interested, we would encourage you to apply as soon as possible.