Principal Business Analyst / Business Design Lead (Planning & Governance Lead)

SA Water; Adelaide; On-site; AUD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Inclusive culture

Professional development opportunities

Job summary

SA Water is seeking a Principal Business Analyst / Business Design Lead in Adelaide. This role involves connecting people and data to achieve significant business goals, focusing on data governance and stakeholder collaboration.

The successful candidate will lead a small team, managing complex challenges and aligning business priorities. Applicants should have experience in business analysis, data governance, and a passion for collaboration and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in leading small teams and mentoring individuals.
• Strong background in business analysis or data governance.
• Intermediate skills in relevant data technologies.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team to deliver meaningful business outcomes.
• Support informed decision-making through collaboration.
• Set and embed data governance practices.

Skills

Leadership

Business analysis

Data governance

Stakeholder engagement

Decision-making

Education

Tertiary qualification in Information Technology, Business, or related discipline

Tools

Microsoft Azure

Collibra

Data modelling

Job description

SA Water is a successful, modern water utility wholly owned by the Government of South Australia. We employ more than 1,700 people across a broad range of disciplines who operate more than $14 billion worth of infrastructure to deliver essential water and sewerage services to more than 1.8 million South Australians.

We operate in a geographically and climatically diverse service area, with sites and locations from Ceduna through to Port Augusta, the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, across to the Riverland, down to Mount Gambier, and most places in between.

Our strength and expertise have been shaped by our history. For more than 165 years, South Australians have depended on us to innovate and deliver efficient and sustainable water services. With nationally and internationally recognised industry expertise, we’re focused on understanding and meeting our customers’ expectations.

As well as safely delivering smart and reliable services for our customers of today, we innovate to shape the water solutions of the future that will support thriving economies and healthy communities.

We are driven by our values; we value our people, we do work that matters, we keep it real, we know that our work has impact and we are future focussed. Staying true to our values ensures that we consistently deliver positive outcomes for all South Australians.

About the job

As the Principal Business Analyst / Business Design Lead (Planning and Governance - Capability Lead), you will play a key role in connecting people, priorities, and data to deliver meaningful business outcomes. Working closely with stakeholders across the Growth, you will bring clarity to complex challenges, support informed decision-making, and help align competing priorities.

This is a business-facing leadership role focused on shaping, prioritising, and enabling Growth Intelligence use cases. You will work closely with stakeholders to run discovery workshops, clarify business problems, prioritise requirements, shape delivery-ready use cases, support Data and AI governance forums, and build a repeatable capability to translate business needs into data, analytics, and AI outcomes for Growth.

Acting as a trusted partner, you will bring together diverse perspectives, foster collaboration, and support teams in navigating ambiguity and change with confidence.

A key aspect of this role is uplifting data management and governance practices. You will work closely with our Enterprise Data & Analytics team, business and technical stakeholders to build a shared understanding, resolve competing viewpoints, and strengthen data stewardship across Growth. Through influence and strong relationship-building, you will help establish sustainable approaches that support both business needs and long-term data quality.

In this role, you will lead a small team, creating an inclusive and supportive environment where people can grow, contribute their best work, and feel empowered to succeed.

We are deeply passionate about attitude, character, and alignment with our culture.

This is a fixed term role until June 2027.

About the Person

You are an experienced leader who enjoys bringing people together to solve complex problems and deliver shared outcomes. You thrive in environments where collaboration, influence, and strong relationships are key to success.

You have demonstrated experience leading small teams and supporting individuals to develop their capability, confidence, and impact. You are skilled at balancing strategic thinking with practical delivery, helping teams stay focused while adapting to evolving business priorities.

You have a strong background in business analysis, business planning, data governance, or data-related environments, with experience facilitating discussions across diverse stakeholder groups. You are comfortable navigating differing perspectives, managing competing priorities, and building consensus on data management and stewardship practices.

About Growth

The Growth group is at the heart of shaping South Australia’s future. This team plays a key role in supporting the state’s housing and infrastructure growth by delivering trusted water services that unlock land for development, create thriving new communities, and sustain existing regions. With a strong focus on single-point accountability, they ensure efficiency, consistent decision-making, and seamless connections for our customers. By bringing expertise and innovation together, they help drive smarter solutions and stronger partnerships that support South Australia’s growth for generations to come.

In addition, your responsibilities will include:

Fostering trust with our people, customers and community by providing expert advice and service that ensure we effectively communicate and engage audiences with our business strategy and its delivery across South Australia, every day.

You will:

• Set effective baseline conditions for productive work by completing important people management processes of selection, induction, assessment, and recognition of performance.
• Initiate and embed opportunities for continuous improvement to build a better culture and greater staff and business stakeholder engagement.
• Mentor, coach and support team members to build analytical, operational and professional capability.
• Be the data governance domain SME, to resolve cross domain data definition and ownership issues, escalating through to enterprise governance forums where required.
• Set and embed a culture of trusted, transparent and decision‑grade data governance across the Growth domain, ensuring data practices consistently support Growth delivery and South Australia’s housing objectives.
• Work with Growth Central and across the Growth Group to identify and deliver business improvements through analytics & AI that streamline activity, are robust and compliant, increase quality and efficiency and represent best practice.
• Lead structured planning cycles to define and prioritise Growth use cases that deliver measurable business value using Analytics & AI.

Your success in this role will come from:

• Tertiary qualification in Information Technology, Business, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience in supporting the implementation of data planning & governance that align with business objectives.
• Good communication and interpersonal skills including an ability to collaborate to deliver improved business outcomes
• Intermediate skill level in Microsoft Azure, Collibra, conceptual and logical data modelling and data governance.
• Ability to lead the team manage multiple tasks and deadlines within a continuously improving organization.

Our Growth Group Behaviours:

Our Growth group behaviours are deeply grounded in our SA Water values and are brought to life through our commitment to building a robust, future‑focused and fun culture. We are building this together by:

• Fostering a culture of curiosity, collaboration and action.
• Encouraging bold ideas, celebrating continuous improvement and integrating timely progress into everything we do.
• Making decisions efficiently and with purpose to deliver meaningful impact, embracing progress over perfection.
• Championing transformation at all levels by breaking down barriers, balancing risk with opportunity, driving change readiness and enabling teams to shape the future.
• Leading with accountability, authenticity and integrity through being vulnerable, actively listening, embracing feedback and acting with transparency.

A great customer experience is best achieved by having a diverse and inclusive team that reflects the community we serve. Applications are encouraged from everyone, including people living with disability, job seekers of all ages, members of the LGBTIQA+ community, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and people from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Please note: We request that recruitment agencies do not submit candidates for this position, as they will not be accepted.