Operations & HSE Manager

About Us

Lodestone Energy is a bold and disruptive force in Aotearoa’s energy landscape. We’re building and operating grid-scale solar farms across New Zealand and pairing that generation with innovative energy solutions for our customers.

We’re growing quickly, with five solar farms now operating and more on the way. We’re a small, high-performing team that likes to challenge convention, solve problems and get things done — while building something that will make a real difference to New Zealand’s energy future.

About the Role

We’re looking for an Operations & HSE Manager to lead our site-based operations team and help us build a safe, capable and high-performing O&M function across our growing solar portfolio.

This is a people leadership role with a strong operational edge. You’ll lead and develop our Solar Site Leads and technical team, ensure they have the resources and support to perform at their best, and provide strong HSE leadership across Operations. When something significant or out of the ordinary happens, you’ll be someone the team can turn to for calm, practical leadership.

You’ll spend plenty of time on our sites and will also play an important role as new solar farms move through commissioning and into Operations.

You’ll:

• Lead, coach and develop our site-based operations and maintenance team.
• Champion a strong, practical HSE culture across our operational portfolio.
• Build consistency across sites in competency, procedures, resourcing and emergency response.
• Provide leadership during significant maintenance, outages and operational issues.
• Support commissioning, electrical QA and the handover of new solar farms into Operations.
• Work with our engineering and asset teams to improve reliability, maintenance and influence future sites designs.
• Manage specialist contractors and service providers.
• Keep looking for smarter, safer and better ways of doing things.

 This role will ideally be based in the Bay of Plenty area and can be site-based, remote, or it could be based out of our Auckland office, with around 50% travel across our solar farm portfolio — definitely not a desk job!-

What You’ll Bring

Technical capability matters, but how you lead and communicate matters just as much. You’ll build trust easily, communicate clearly and enjoy bringing people together. You’ll set high standards while being the kind of leader who listens, gets involved and helps the team solve problems.

You’ll bring:

• Experience leading multi-site operations or maintenance teams, ideally in energy, utilities or infrastructure.
• Experience leading and developing an in-house technical or trades workforce.
• NZ Registered Electrician with a current EWRB practising licence.
• Commercial or industrial electrical experience, ideally in generation, renewables or critical infrastructure.
• Strong HSE leadership and a practical approach to safety.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills.
• Sound judgement and the ability to stay calm when things don’t go to plan.
• A collaborative, hands-on approach and willingness to travel regularly.

Experience managing specialist contractors would be an advantage.

Why Lodestone?

• Lead the people and operations keeping our renewable generation assets safe and performing.
• Help shape how our O&M capability develops as our portfolio grows.
• Work across the asset lifecycle, from commissioning and handover through to operations.
• Join a small, capable team where your ideas and contribution have real impact.
• Enjoy genuine variety across people leadership, HSE, technical problem-solving and site work.
• Help build renewable infrastructure that will make a lasting difference to Aotearoa.

If we’ve sparked your interest and you’re a strong people leader, a capable electrician and someone who believes great safety and great operations go hand in hand, this could be your kind of energy.

We’d love to hear from you. Apply online with your CV, or for a confidential chat contact Viv on [021 2233 870](tel:021 2233 870).