Area Manager

Ready to step beyond one service? This is a great opportunity for an experienced Centre Director to move into an Area Manager role across Wollongong and the Southern Shire.

The benefits

• Salary package expected around $130,000 to $140,000, depending on experience and the final scope of the role
• Step from Centre Director into genuine multi-site leadership
• Help establish a brand-new early learning service from the ground up
• Work across two services focused on children aged two to five
• Have real input into recruitment, team culture and how the new service operates
• Join an organisation with further growth already underway
• Work directly with senior organisational leadership
• Genuine opportunity for the role to grow into broader operational leadership over time
• Flexibility to shape the position around the strengths of the right person

About the opportunity

This is a rare opportunity to step beyond the leadership of a single service and help shape the next stage of a growing Christian early childhood organisation. You will work across an established preschool in the Southern Shire and a new Wollongong-area service, both centred on children aged two to five. The existing preschool brings stability, an established team and a strong local reputation, while the new service offers the excitement of building something from the ground up.

The new Wollongong service gives you the chance to build something properly from the beginning. You will have real input into the team, culture and day-to-day way the service runs, rather than simply stepping into someone else's setup. With the organisation continuing to grow, there is also plenty of room for this role to expand with it.

This is not an Area Manager role built around occasionally visiting services and checking spreadsheets. You will remain close enough to the teams, children and families to understand what is really happening, while progressively taking on broader responsibility across both locations.

The organisation is deliberately keeping some flexibility around how the position ultimately works. For the right leader, there is scope to build a working arrangement that makes sense for the two services, the teams and the person appointed.

About you

You will probably be an experienced Centre Director who has reached the point where you are ready for something broader.

• Substantial Centre Director or senior early childhood leadership experience
• Strong operational, compliance and people-management capability
• Confidence leading autonomously and making sound decisions
• Ability to coach, support and develop other leaders
• Comfortable balancing priorities across more than one service
• Experience opening a new service, leading significant change or building a team would be highly regarded
• Strong understanding of staffing, performance management, family relationships and regulatory requirements
• ACECQA-approved early childhood qualification
• Actively practising Christian with meaningful involvement in a local church
• Comfortable discussing your faith and how it influences the way you lead
• Willing and able to travel between the Southern Shire and Wollongong

You do not need to have previously held an Area Manager title. If you have successfully led a service and can demonstrate that you are ready for the next level of responsibility, we would very much like to hear from you.

What next?

If you are an experienced Centre Director who has been wondering what the next step looks like, this could be it.

Apply with your résumé and Early Years Talent will contact suitable applicants for a confidential conversation about the organisation, the services and how the role could be structured around the right person.