About this Opportunity

Step into a pivotal senior leadership role where planning  meets operational delivery. As Senior Manager, Planning and Business Operations, you will play a critical role in shaping how UQ Sport enables participation, performance and community engagement, ensuring our sport and recreation environments are safe, sustainable and well-supported for day-to-day delivery and long-term growth.

Reporting directly to the CEO and operating as a key member of a connected and high-performing leadership team, this role influences across the organisation by enabling strong operational systems and services. You will lead a diverse portfolio of central enabling functions, including marketing and communications, business systems, health and safety, facilities services, finance, and data and insights, ensuring they work together to support effective, well-coordinated and service-focused operations across sport and recreation programs.

This is a role for an astute and operationally grounded leader who thrives on enabling others to deliver. You will use data and insights to improve decision making, strengthen planning, and enhance service delivery capabilities for our facilities and customer-facing teams. You will also foster continuous improvement, build capability within your teams, and ensure systems and processes actively support frontline delivery of sport and recreation experiences.

If you are motivated by leading enabling functions that directly support participation and customer outcomes, influencing across a complex operational environment, and creating conditions where people can move, achieve and belong, this is your opportunity to make a meaningful impact!

Key responsibilities will include:

• Lead organisation-wide planning, performance and reporting, using data and insights to support informed decision making, service improvement and operational effectiveness across sport and recreation delivery.
• Oversee central enabling functions including marketing and communications, business systems, health and safety, facilities services and data, ensuring integrated, practical and service-focused support for operational teams.
• Provide strong people leadership by building capability, fostering a high-performing and inclusive culture, and ensuring effective workforce planning and support for service delivery environments.
• Ensure sound financial, governance and risk management practices across the portfolio, supporting sustainable performance, compliance and safe, well-managed operations.

About You

• Proven success in a senior leadership role within a complex operational environment such as sport and recreation, local government, education, or large service-based organisations.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with experience managing budgets, performance and service delivery outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop high-performing teams, fostering a practical, accountable and collaborative culture.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to translate priorities into clear, operationally effective plans and improvements.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across operational, technical and leadership groups.
• Experience using data, systems and insights to improve operational performance, customer experience and service delivery outcomes.

About UQ Sport

At UQ Sport, our vision is to be Australia’s number one sporting university, and our mission is to deliver exceptional sporting opportunities for The University of Queensland (UQ) community.

We are Queensland’s largest multi-sport facility, offering Athletics, Aquatic, Tennis and Fitness Centres, along with playing fields, multi-sport courts, function spaces and retail outlets. Our membership base exceeds 4,000, with more than 7,000 participants engaged across 35+ sporting clubs.

We believe work should be engaging and rewarding. Our team is passionate about fostering a positive culture that supports work-life balance, health and wellbeing, and personal and professional growth.

As a not-for-profit organisation, we deliver almost 400 diverse programs to students, staff, alumni and the wider community across UQ’s St Lucia and Gatton campuses.

Work Perks

Enjoy a vibrant, team-oriented culture where collaboration thrives, along with complimentary access to UQ Sport facilities, equipment hire and Group Fitness classes to support your wellbeing. You’ll also benefit from birthday leave, additional festive season leave, and 17.5% leave loading with flexible options – giving you more time and flexibility to recharge, so you can move, achieve and belong with UQ Sport!

Interested? Come and join the UQ Sport team today!

Other Information

UQ Sport is an equal employment opportunity provider. We pride ourselves on our inclusive and diverse workforce. We believe that embracing the differences and expertise in our employees makes us a stronger organisation. 

We are committed to providing a fun, safe and supportive service environment for all our customers and clients, including children and young people. For this reason, please be advised that as part of our recruitment process you may be subject to criminal background checks, blue card screening, reference checks, and identification/qualification verification. We may request that you disclose any information relevant to your eligibility to engage in our programs involving children and young people.