Associate Director, Faculty Partnerships

The University of Sydney; Sydney; On-site; AUD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Sydney invites applications for Associate Director, Faculty Partnerships, a full-time continuing leadership role within Sydney Future Students. You will guide faculty and school-level recruitment strategies, allocate resources, and partner with senior stakeholders to align recruitment with university priorities.

You will lead strategic planning, produce high-quality reports on market demand and student profiles, manage budgets, and foster a culture of innovation and

Qualifications

• Substantial understanding of university faculty/school-based needs.
• High-level planning and organisational skills to coordinate multiple stakeholders.
• Advanced leadership and interpersonal capabilities for large, complex teams.
• Experience in higher education leadership and governance.

Responsibilities

• Lead the team’s strategic planning activities and align with university targets.
• Provide high-level analysis to support SFS strategic goals.
• Develop and deliver reports on market trends, demand, intake scenarios, and rankings.
• Ensure clear understanding of objectives and provide regular updates to senior stakeholders.
• Support product development, market analysis, and engagement across leadership teams.
• Allocate resources and monitor budgets to align with recruitment strategy.
• Foster data literacy, reporting, and decision-making within the team.
• Build a culture of innovation, excellence, collaboration and accountability.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic planning

Stakeholder management

Data analysis

Communication

Job description

Associate Director, Faculty Partnerships

• Full-time, continuing position as an Associate Director, Faculty Partnerships
• Key leadership position supporting Sydney Future Students

About the opportunity

The Associate Director, Faculty Partnerships, is a key operational leadership role responsible for supporting Sydney Future Students in developing and implementing faculty- and school-level recruitment strategies and services for the University of Sydney. This includes establishing, implementing, and reviewing evidence-based approaches to resource planning, priority setting, and decision-making across the Faculty Partnerships function, and using data, market intelligence, insights and other relevant information to develop recruitment plans to support university and faculty level priorities in collaboration with the Sydney Future Students leadership team.

The role of Associate Director, Faculty Partnerships has been designed to lead the team in providing a highly professional, specialised, and effective student recruitment service through activities and strategic partnerships. This is an excellent opportunity to bring your extensive higher education, operational expertise, service model, people leadership and exceptional stakeholder management skills to the forefront of your role. This role is one where your initiative, creativity, and leadership experience will help to deliver excellence to our stakeholders and support the Sydney Future Students portfolio in delivering best-in-market student recruitment expertise and product insights.

The Associate Director, Faculty Partnerships will work under the broad direction of the Director, Domestic Recruitment and Access, and will work collaboratively with stakeholders to continuously improve the Faculty Partnerships offering on behalf of Sydney Future Students. The Associate Director will apply significant knowledge and experience to focus on continuous improvement approaches to support the delivery of highly professional student recruitment outcomes in line with the broader University and faculty/schools’ strategic goals. This role is pivotal in shaping the team's service offering and representing the team at senior levels across the institution.

Your key responsibilities will be to:

• lead the team’s key strategic planning activities, including the development of strategic, operational, and business plans aligned with university-wide targets and faculty priorities
• lead and provide high-level analysis and information in support of the achievement of SFS’s strategic goals
• work with the leadership team to develop and deliver high-quality reports on market and student demand trends, intake scenarios, profiles, course and field of education, and subject-specific rankings and changes, and competitors’ activities.
• ensure the Faculty Partnerships team has a clear understanding of faculty and school-level objectives and a means to provide regular updates on student recruitment activities to the Associate Vice-President, SFS leadership, Deans, faculty and school staff and faculty/school Marketing and Communications teams
• support university product development, review and market analysis projects, contributing to university-wide and faculty curriculum projects, engaging and coordinating input from other members of the Sydney Future Students leadership team
• manage the allocation of resources, ensuring alignment with the strategic direction of student recruitment, including developing and monitoring the allocated faculty/school-level budgets within Faculty Partnerships
• facilitate evidence-based decision-making by supporting the development of data, product, market, and student recruitment reporting literacy for the Faculty Partnerships team as required
• build and foster a culture of innovation, creativity, excellence, collaboration and accountability.

About you

• substantial understanding of university faculty/school-based needs in managing their student recruitment objectives
• high-level planning and organisational skills, and the ability to coordinate multiple streams of stakeholders
• highly developed leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, including skills in large-scale, complex team and stakeholder management and internal relationship building, negotiation, influencing and motivation, and the ability to prioritise and effectively manage team workloads
• superior relationship management skills and capacity to manage competing needs of diverse stakeholders, with various time and resource limitations
• previous experience in higher education leadership, and working knowledge of university, faculty, and school-level planning, reporting and governance.

Sponsorship / work rights for Australia

You must have unrestricted work rights in Australia for the duration of this employment to be eligible to apply. Visa sponsorship is not available for this appointment.

Pre-employment checks and declarations

Your employment is conditional upon the successful completion of all pre-employment or background checks required for the role in terms satisfactory to the University. Also, to meet the University’s obligations under the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Eliminate Gender-Based Violence you will be asked to declare if you have been investigated for, or found to engaged in, sexual harm or gender-based violence in the course of previous employment or in a legal process. Similarly, your ongoing employment is conditional upon the satisfactory maintenance of all relevant clearances and background check requirements. If you do not meet these conditions, the University may take any necessary step, including the termination of your employment.

This position is designated as involving child-related work. To undertake or remain in this position, you are required to apply for and obtain a Working with Children Check clearance in accordance with the Child Protection (Working with Children) Act 2012.

EEO statement

At the University of Sydney, our shared values are trust, accountability and excellence and we strive to be a place where everyone can thrive. We are committed to creating a University community that thrives through diversity and reflects the wider community that we serve. We deliver on this through our commitment to diversity and inclusion, evidenced by our people and culture programs, as well as key strategies to increase participation and support the careers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, women, people living with a disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and those who identify as LGBTQIA+. We welcome applications from candidates from all backgrounds.

We are proud to be recognised as an Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) Platinum Employer. Find out more about our work on diversity and inclusion.

For a confidential discussion about the role, or if you require reasonable adjustment or support filling out this application, please contact Kristy Fairweather, Recruitment Operations, by email to ***************@sydney.edu.au

The University reserves the right not to proceed with any appointment.