Lead Advisor, Regulatory Performance & Insights

• Strategic advisory role working in a high pace environment

• An opportunity to work within a highly connected and collaborative team

• Influence intelligence and risk within an intelligence-led, risk-based regulator

• Fixed term position until December 2026

The purpose of Regulatory Performance and Insights is to provide hindsight, insight, foresight and oversight to enable the improvement of the effectiveness, efficiency, resilience and fairness of the whole of the land transport regulatory system. The team play a vital role in the success of both Te Rōpū Waeture and the Director of Land Transport role.

The power and value of the function sits in the collective of the work across the teams coming together to provide a full picture of the regulatory land transport system. To enable this, the teams within Regulatory Performance and Insights need to have a symbiotic relationship, recognising the interdependent and connected nature of their work. The Lead Advisor, Regulatory Performance and Insights plays a central, catalyst role for ensuring that this occurs - connecting the dots, facilitating the joining-up of work, working across the team to design our collective ways of working and ensuring that, across the group, the work is being delivered in the right way at the right time in the right way.

Those that work in Regulatory Performance and Insights are experts in what they do, and a key component of this role is supporting the quality review of our products. To enable this, the holder of this role needs to have a strong understanding and experience across a broad range of methodologies and approaches, including future focused intelligence, the creation of strong, evidence-based insights, evaluation and assurance, and performance monitoring. The right person for this role will be able to test that the right methodologies and approaches are being used, and the end products are both of high quality and bias-free, in a way that is constructive and mana-enhancing for the team.

Of course, being the Lead Advisor to the National Manager, Regulatory Performance and Insights means that you will need to support and provide strategic advice across the full breadth of their priorities. This means not only being across all of the work of the teams, but also developing clear and intentional plans to support and work alongside the leadership team driving the necessary culture post change, increasing engagement, and stakeholder engagement, as well as managing the multiple requests that come through to the National Manager, from reporting requirements to Ministerial briefings to contributing to cross-agency working groups and forums.

A high level of political nous is required to be successful in this role. That includes the ability to form good, positive relationships easily across a wide range of people, being able to have difficult conversations in a way that ensures all people are treated with respect, as well as being across all of the major priorities, risks and issues in the Land Transport system, making connections across these, and managing crises and urgent matters in a calm and clear manner with a focus on delivery, resolution and timeliness.

The ability to work as a part of and be respected by the wider Te Rōpū Waeture Group Leadership Team and their Lead Advisors is critical to the success of this role. Relationships will be forged through high quality delivery at pace and leading by example in living the NZTA values, alongside the te ao Māori principles and principles of regulatory good practice outlined in Tū ake, Tū maia.

To be successful in this role, you will bring:

• Experience being the lead advisor of a Senior Leader

• Experience and knowledge of modern regulatory stewardship and practices

• Experience working in functions producing intelligence, evidence and insights (preference)

• A high understanding of the machinery of government

• Applied leadership skills, evidencing being inclusive, influential, adaptive and strategic

• The ability to translate strategy into priorities, plans and deliverables to meet outcomes

• Experience building relationships and credibility through values based delivery

• The ability to quickly and easily produce high quality reports and briefings

• Applied experience of the development of innovative and inter-disciplinary strategies (preference)

• Applied experience building frameworks, tools and processes

• Evidence of applying a wide range of methodologies and having a strong 'toolkit'

• Evidence of staying up to date on emerging thinking and techniques

• Participation in external and leadership of internal communities of practice (preference)

• Experience influencing people's thinking outside of your direct sphere of influence

• Undertaking complex analysis and providing advice

• Designing solutions and implementing these, considering change management best practice

• Providing feedback and coaching, which is well received and results in positive change

• Exceptional visual, written and verbal communication skills

• Experience planning and managing work, with work being successfully delivered against plan

• Exceptional engagement and collaboration skills, working with others to deliver shared goals

• Being politically savvy and being able to navigate complex issues respecting the mana of all

• Being agile and pragmatic, being able to flex and adapt your approach to meet needs

• The ability to work at pace and manage multiple priorities and subject matters at once

• Being a natural collaborator who actively seeks and listens to the perspectives of others

You will need to have at least ten years of experience in similar roles, and demonstrated in-depth experience in a range of methodologies, including systems thinking, human insights, qualitative and quantitative analysis, performance frameworks and monitoring, independent quality assurance reviews, intelligence and risk. The team is starting to embrace agile and design thinking methodologies in the way that they work, alongside the te ao Māori principles of Tū ake, Tū māia, so thought leadership in these would be an advantage.