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Leadership Programs Director
Women's Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA)
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The climate crisis is also a leadership challenge. What if your knack for leadership, systems and strategic partnerships could help shape the next generation of climate leaders?
Why us?
Help us drive impact in:
The opportunity:
Why you might love this opp:
The team at Women’s Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA) is reshaping who leads - and how leadership is practised - across Australia’s climate and environmental movements. For nearly a decade, WELA has backed women and gender-diverse changemakers to build the confidence, capability, networks and support to drive meaningful change in their communities. Grounded in feminist leadership and environmental justice, WELA exists because the climate crisis is also a leadership challenge.
Why you might love this opportunity:
💚 Changing who leads: Founded by some of Australia’s most respected environmental campaigners and feminist changemakers, WELA has grown into a national organisation shaping leadership across climate and environmental change. Through flagship National Leadership Programs, specialist intensives, place-based initiatives, advocacy, events & thought leadership, this small and passionate team is backing women and gender-diverse changemakers to lead at every level. Alumni are stepping into CEO roles, elected office, senior advocacy positions and community leadership roles across the country.
🌏 Impact in action: Last year alone, 141 women and gender-diverse leaders joined WELA programs, alongside 800+ attendees at events across the country. With 51 scholarships awarded, 75 expert presenters and facilitators, and a 16,000+ strong national community, WELA is helping shape leadership across generations, sectors and communities. Backed by partners including Paul Ramsay Foundation, FRRR, Boundless Earth and The Sunrise Project - combined with a podcast collab with Women’s Agenda - WELA has become one of Australia’s most influential organisations at the intersection of feminist leadership, climate and environmental change. Now, WELA is entering one of its most exciting growth chapters yet.
🥜 In a nutshell: At its core, this is a role about leadership - both the leadership you bring and the leadership you help grow in others. You’ll guide and unlock the potential of a passionate team, supporting their individual growth and performance, and fostering collaboration across the organisation. Alongside the CEO and Communications & Engagement Director, you’ll keep an eye on the horizon; bringing a steady hand and strong judgement to organisational growth and decision-making. Drawing on your experience, you’ll help strengthen WELA’s programs, ecosystem partnerships and operating rhythms - supporting the organisation to deepen its work building the power of Australian women and gender-diverse people to deliver climate and nature solutions.
📅 Your week: Together with the team, you’re looking ahead - shaping priorities, aligning effort and creating clarity. One day, you’re reviewing program insights and cohort feedback, coaching the team to think critically about what’s needed next - whether that’s refining delivery, bringing in new expertise or shifting resources where they’ll have the greatest leverage. Another, you’re nurturing key partnerships and taking meetings to catalyse new ones. Throughout, you push a quick exec update out on income targets, while checking in with the Comms team because you know trust, ecosystem presence and shared purpose are what turn early conversations into meaningful long-term partnerships and org sustainability.
🕶️ Your style: You’re the kind of person who works with intention. You listen carefully, your genuine curiosity helps you ask great questions, and you’re comfortable pausing to reflect before shifting course. You’d rather make a quick phone call than let a Slack or email thread turn into a Reddit forum, and you enjoy adapting your communication for different moments - whether it’s a board report, partner pitch or 1:1 check-in. When challenges arise, you naturally look for the solutions that help the puzzle come together again, and you’re confident holding accountability while empowering those around you.
💬 Inside WELA: This is a thoughtful, values-driven team with big ambition and deep integrity. The work is relational, nuanced and high trust, with a genuine commitment to flexible, family-friendly and sustainable ways of working. As a fully remote team, WELA is intentional about building a culture where collaboration and self-accountability co-exist, and where people feel supported, challenged and equipped to do their best work. The team cares deeply not just about what is delivered, but how people lead, work and grow together over time.
💡 What you bring: You may have built the skills and experience for this role across a range of settings - from non-profit organisations, social enterprise, leadership development, education and training or other purpose-led environments. What matters is that you understand systems change, are values aligned and bring a balance of three things: strong people leadership, great organisational judgement and a deep understanding of leadership development. Your operational skills help create the conditions that sustainable organisational growth requires - balancing team performance, program quality, financial oversight, partnership development and revenue growth.
📍 The detail: Permanent role. Full-time or 0.8 FTE for the right candidate. Salary of $135,000 + super (pro-rated for 0.8 FTE). Strong preference for Eora/Sydney, Naarm/Melbourne or Meanjin/Brisbane. Occasional after-hours work and domestic travel are part of the role. Staff provide their own laptop and phone. This role is open to Australian residents with full working rights.
What's involved:
The balance of work will shift over time but to start:
〰️ 35% Leadership & Team Performance:
Nurture a high-performing, well-supported programs team with strong role clarity, sharp operating rhythms and clear accountability.
〰️ 35% Programs & Delivery Excellence:
Strengthen program quality, delivery and performance, ensuring exceptional leadership experiences and strong participant outcomes across WELA’s leadership programs portfolio.
〰️ 30% Partnerships & Sustainable Growth:
Grow the strategic partnerships, revenue pathways and delivery models that will support WELA’s next phase of growth and long-term sustainability.
Key criteria:
The kind of expertise and skills you can leverage in this role include:
🌟 Trusted Leader: You’re a strong people leader with the judgement, emotional maturity and presence to bring out the best in others. You know how to build high-performing teams, support people to grow and create the conditions for strong collaboration.
🏛️ Executive Operator: You’ve operated at a senior level and understand what it takes to help a small, growing organisation thrive. Strong team management, commercial and financial rigour, sound judgement and a clear understanding of what sustainable growth requires - from revenue models and strategic partnerships through to governance, risk and resource allocation - are all part of your toolkit.
👥 Seasoned Practitioner: You bring genuine leadership expertise and demonstrated experience of successfully leading diverse communities. You know what exceptional leadership programs look like, with a clear sense of how learning experiences can shift confidence, capability and long-term influence.
🤝 Partnership Builder: You genuinely enjoy strategic relationship-building and bring a strong track record of developing effective partnerships. You’re thoughtful, relational and good at spotting alignment. You can point to real examples of partnerships that have unlocked revenue, strengthened delivery and created lasting impact.
🕶️ Smooth Operator: You think in systems and instinctively know where to look for leverage - whether it’s automation, dashboards or team cohesion; you love a good efficiency win. A smarter, calmer operating rhythm that saves the team six hours a week? Tick. Strengths-based delegation & role clarity that lifts output without adding headcount? Double tick. You turn complexity into clarity, and know that the best operators build trust and buy-in, not just better systems.
🚀 Builder’s Mindset: You’re energised by building. New initiative. Messy challenge. Half-formed idea with real potential. You’re in! You don’t need perfect conditions or complete information to get moving. You adapt, solve creatively and keep direction strong when things get uncertain. Put you in a room with five competing priorities, three curveballs and one under-caffeinated team, and you’ve brainstormed a solid plan before anyone can yell, “Let’s start a Miro board.”
🔥 Values aligned: Feminist leadership, environmental justice and systems change aren’t add-ons to you. You understand that leadership shapes movements - and that who leads matters. You care deeply about growing diverse leadership across climate and environmental movements, and about doing so in a way that is thoughtful, relational and built to last.
How to apply:
Women and gender diverse people from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities, communities of colour, or culturally and linguistically diverse communities are encouraged to apply.
If any of the above resonated with you but you don’t tick every box:
👒 🧢 🎩 You should throw your hat in the ring, whatever those years of experience look like in your personal impact journey. We’d love to hear from you!
Interested?
1. Create a profile (or complete yours if you already have one) on Ripple Opportunities. Note: This won't be shared directly with our impact partner but we may reach out to you for permission to share excerpts if we think it could assist your application.
2. Submit an application by clicking on the job listing and ‘apply’. Please submit your resume and a cover letter (ideally PDF) that briefly outlines what’s motivating you to apply for the role and how your experience could be applied in this context. We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early.
Your written application (max 1,000 words) should include:
- What’s motivating you to apply for this role?
- A brief overview of your experience and how it aligns with the role.
- A specific experience you’ve had that’s directly related to this role (e.g. leading teams, delivering leadership programs, growing strategic partnerships). What was the objective, what strategy and tactics did you implement, what results did you achieve and what did you learn from this?
- Let us know your ideal hours, salary expectations, availability (including start date or time away), and anything else that helps us understand your fit.
To apply, please submit your application via Ripple Opportunities (www.rippleopportunities.com). Questions? Please contact hey@rippleopportunities.com.
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