Regional Programme Director - South Island

Our purpose is to empower the energy future for New Zealand, a future that delivers a net-zero carbon economy and a reliable, secure electricity system.

Our context

The scale and complexity of our work programme is expected to more than double in the next five years. To meet this challenge, we are evolving the way we work, strengthening capability, and positioning ourselves to deliver the infrastructure, planning, and system outcomes New Zealand will need for decades to come.

Grid Delivery is responsible for the work that keeps the National Grid safe, reliable, resilient and ready for New Zealand’s changing electricity needs.

Grid Delivery brings together the people, planning and partnerships needed to deliver a programme of infrastructure investment growing to over $1b per annum. Grid Programme Delivery will drive the investment programme both today and into the future. The team will shape the work that enters the delivery system, ensuring investment requirements are translated into realistic, prioritised, and achievable delivery commitments.

About the opportunity - this is not a traditional programme delivery role.

As one of three Regional Programme Directors, you’ll be accountable for programme optimisation and the delivery of that programme across your allocated region. This is not about regional autonomy in isolation, however; it is about improving overall delivery outcomes. You’ll bring accountability, customer engagement and decision-making closer to where work is delivered, while supporting a national view of priorities, capability, capacity, affordability, outage constraints, service provider performance and delivery risk.

Leading through influence, you'll drive delivery outcomes across regions, internal teams and external delivery partners. You'll help shape the flow of work through the wider delivery system, support better prioritisation and sequencing, and provide a realistic view of delivery reality. You'll challenge assumptions and influence decisions to ensure work is realistic, achievable and can be delivered safely, efficiently and affordably.

Success in the role is not measured solely by delivery of today's programme, but by helping build a stronger and more capable delivery system for the future.

What will you bring?

We are seeking experienced delivery leaders, with significant experience leading complex delivery programmes or portfolios, ideally within utilities, infrastructure, construction or another capital-intensive environment. Your background will include strong programme planning, resource optimisation, delivery performance, stakeholder engagement and commercial judgement.

You’ll balance regional needs with national outcomes, understanding how sequencing, outages, resources, workforce capability, partner capacity, affordability, customer expectations and delivery risk interact across a delivery programme.

Working through influence, you’ll anticipate constraints, make evidence-based decisions, identify risks and dependencies, communicate complex information clearly, and constructively challenge assumptions or priorities where needed to improve long-term delivery outcomes for Transpower and New Zealand.

In your CV we’ll be looking for evidence of:

• Experience leading multi-year, complex scaling work programmes or portfolios in infrastructure, utilities, energy or another capital-intensive environment.

• Strong programme planning, sequencing and optimisation capability, including balancing priorities, constraints, outages, resources and affordability.

• Demonstrated ability to balance regional or local delivery needs with broader enterprise, national or portfolio outcomes.

• Experience identifying delivery constraints and improving the systems, partnerships or processes needed to increase delivery capability over time.

• Exceptional ability to communicate and coordinate delivery across multiple teams, stakeholders and external partners, including supplier, contractor or delivery partner environments.

• Governance, risk, assurance and performance reporting capability, supported by strong internal and external stakeholder engagement and influencing skills.

A relevant tertiary qualification, or equivalent experience, is expected. A professional qualification in portfolio, programme or project management would be advantageous.

Join us at Transpower

At Transpower, our people are connected by purpose: empowering New Zealand’s energy future. We bring diverse perspectives together to solve complex challenges, make considered decisions, and deliver work that matters for generations to come.

In this senior role, visibility, connection, and communication matter. You’ll help create clarity, bring people together, and lead through complexity as we deliver infrastructure outcomes of national significance. We offer intellectually stimulating work, ongoing learning, and a range of health, wellbeing, and insurance benefits.

Learn more here: Staff benefits | Transpower

Applications close Tuesday 1stSeptemberand will be reviewed as they are received.  We may contact candidates ahead of the closing date for an initial exploratory conversation.