Introduction

Are you an experienced operations manager in the travel, outdoor education, tourism or events space? Do you have a history of leading a team to deliver dozens of programs to a very high standard? Do you enjoy managing staff and processes to ensure successful delivery of and improvements to programs? Are you ready for your next long-term role?

Red Earth is growing quickly, and we are looking for a driven Head of Region who is passionate about helping to lead a team that connects young people to the Indigenous homelands across the Top End. This is an amazing chance for someone to lead the delivery of our programs across Arnhem Land and Top End region, working at the cross-roads of tourism and the Indigenous space. This role will be ideally primarily Sydney based but with opportunity to travel to our beautiful partner regions across in the Top End.

Organisation Outline

We are a small social enterprise with 21 employees passionate about connecting groups of high school students to remote Indigenous Australia. We do this by building immersion programs, ten-day trips into remote Indigenous communities and homelands where small groups learn from Elders, visit cultural sites, and volunteer on a service project in the community.

Role Outline

You will be charged with leading the delivery of all our programs in the Top End. In practice, this will mean managing the Travel Operations Managers and Field Operations Managers responsible for planning, bookings and making the immersions successful on the ground. You will be ideally based in our Sydney office with regular travel to our Top End partner homelands.

You will have broad autonomy over delivery, budgeting, staffing and execution and will be responsible for the quality of programs delivered in the Top End.

Main Responsibilities

Delivery: Helping to refine and execute processes to deliver excellent programs in the Top End.

• As we scale, you will continue to refine and execute our processes to make sure that each immersion program is delivered to the highest standard (i.e. nothing ‘falls through the cracks’).
• This includes Office Operations (the preparation that happens before an immersion program is ‘on-the-ground’) and our Field Operations (all the elements that make an immersion successful on the ground, e.g. equipment, Indigenous partner relationships, part-time staff).
• While managing the delivery team, you will also be required manage and deliver the office operations for a select amount of immersion programs.

Staffing: Managing and hiring full-time, part-time staff and casual staff

• You will manage the current Top End Office and Field Operations team and be heavily involved in the hiring of new employees.
• Help organise and present at the yearly training event attended by the regional casual Immersion Leader staff.

Client Relationships: Working alongside our Business Development team for major clients

• You will be involved in onboarding major clients and the ongoing management of these relationships.
• You will be in regular contact with clients to understand their needs so our programs can be continuously improved.

Budgets: Directly involved in long-term strategy and financial viability

• You will work closely with the Head of Operations and General Manager to set long-term growth and cost-management strategies.
• You will be responsible for setting and maintaining delivery budgets, working closely with the Head of Operations and General Manager.

Desired Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• Required: 3+ years management experience (teams of 6 or more people)
• Required: 5+ years operations and project management experience
• Required: 5+ years’ experience in a similar industry (tourism, outdoor education, events, travel)
• Required: financial literacy and experiencing in maintaining budgets
• Desired: experience in start-up, high growth business-environments
• Desired: public speaking experience

A position description is attached.