Senior Manager, Project & Portfolio Excellence

Are you ready to make a real impact in Australia’s energy transition?

At AusNet, we’re the link between renewable energy sources and local communities, playing a key role in the clean energy transition and providing essential energy to every Victorian family.

Help us lead the way, while enriching your career with real people who encourage you to bring your best and make real impact – for your career, our communities and Australia’s cleaner energy future.

About The Role

AusNet is seeking a strategic and engaging leader to join our Project & Portfolio Excellence function within Group Operations. This is a senior leadership position responsible for driving enterprise-wide excellence in project and portfolio delivery at AusNet. Reporting to the GM Operations Management, you will lead a centralised function that enables consistent, high-quality planning, prioritisation, execution, and delivery outcomes across the organisation.

You’ll be accountable for embedding scalable frameworks, tools, and methodologies, supporting governance forums, and providing strategic insights that inform decision-making. This role is central to enabling execution within the Line of Business (LoB) through effective business partnering. You’ll help translate strategic priorities into action, supporting enterprise value through disciplined delivery and stakeholder alignment. This is a hands-on, influential role that requires strong leadership, strategic thinking, and the ability to engage, influence and enable others. You’ll play a key role in shaping how AusNet delivers complex infrastructure and transformation initiatives, while fostering a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, and trust.

Key Responsibilities

• Implement and maintain enterprise-wide frameworks, tools, and methodologies for project and portfolio management that are scalable, practical, and aligned with strategic priorities.
• Provide tailored, end-to-end support to project teams across Lines of Business, adapting to varying levels of maturity and promoting alignment with enterprise governance.
• Manage a centralised team focused on uplifting delivery capability, fostering innovation, and promoting best practices across the organisation.
• Design and deliver training, coaching, and development programs to strengthen project and portfolio management skills and embed a consistent delivery culture.
• Facilitate governance processes and forums, providing tools and insights to enable transparent, well-informed decision-making.
• Establish mechanisms to track delivery and outcomes and provide actionable insights to senior leaders to support continuous improvement.
• Build strong relationships across the business, acting as a trusted advisor and liaison between governance and delivery teams to drive alignment and outcomes.
• Inspire, coach, and manage a high-performing team, overseeing performance, development, and engagement while fostering a culture of trust, accountability, and continuous improvement.

What You’Ll Bring

• A strong, enabling leadership style, someone who leads through trust and empowerment
• A collaborative mindset and ability to build relationships across diverse teams and maturity levels.
• A strategic lens with the ability to listen deeply to business needs before jumping to solutions.
• A passion for uplifting capability and embedding scalable, enterprise-wide practices.
• A commitment to AusNet’s values: safety, integrity, teamwork, and delivery excellence.

Skills & Experience

Qualifications & Certifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Project Management, or a related discipline.
• PMP®, PRINCE2® Practitioner, or PMBOK certification. (advantageous)
• PfMP® or equivalent portfolio governance certification (advantageous).

Knowledge & Skills

• Deep understanding of project, program, and portfolio management methodologies (e.g. PMBOK, PRINCE2, MSP, MoP).
• 8+ years in project delivery, PMO, or portfolio management roles.
• 5+ years developing frameworks, training programs, and capability uplift.
• Proven success in embedding enterprise-wide standards and supporting governance forums.
• Experience in asset-intensive or regulated sectors is highly desirable
• Strong knowledge of capital investment governance, business case development, and prioritisation.
• Skilled in stakeholder engagement, facilitation, coaching, and capability uplift.
• Analytical and strategic thinking with strong commercial and financial acumen.
• Familiarity with Agile, hybrid, and traditional delivery models.

Please note, we will not be engaging in Recruitment agencies for this role, please apply directly!

A real place to belong.

We celebrate unique voices, refreshing perspectives and diversity in our team. Engage and connect through our social club, wide range of events or by joining one of our Employee Network Groups.

We believe in more than just competitive pay. Here’s what sets us apart:

• Leave: more than typical personal leave and a generous 14 weeks of paid parental leave, with no minimum service.
• Community giving: a paid day to volunteer with our social impact partner, Foodbank, or for a cause that matters to you.
• Perks: we offer all the other perks you’ve come to expect like purchased leave, income protection insurance, novated leasing, corporate discounts, private health cover discounts and more.

As an industry in transformation, we’re excited by the possibilities ahead.

So, if you’re passionate about our purpose and committed to making real progress, bring your energy and join AusNet. Together, we can shape a new way forward.