Manager City Planning and Sustainability

About The Role:

Are you an influential, future-focused leader with a passion for shaping great cities?

We are seeking a highly strategic and visionary senior leader to guide the City of Charles Sturt’s long-term direction across city planning, sustainability, economic development, climate resilience, and major precinct planning. 

This role leads the City Planning and Sustainability Business Unit and is responsible for delivering integrated, evidence-based strategies that build liveability, sustainability, economic vibrancy and cultural identity for our community. You will champion the City Vision 2040, oversee transformative place-shaping initiatives, and strengthen the city’s resilience to emerging environmental, economic and demographic challenges.  

Reporting to the General Manager City Futures, you will play a pivotal strategic role within the organisation, building strong internal and external partnerships, driving portfolio governance, ensuring prioritisation of major initiatives, and enabling high-quality, future-ready outcomes for the City.  

About You:

You are a seasoned leader with a distinguished background in complex planning, sustainability or major urban development environments. You bring a sophisticated understanding of systems thinking, strategic policy development, and future-oriented planning approaches that support long-term city shaping. 

You have a record of:

• Leading multidisciplinary teams with confidence, clarity and purpose.
• Influencing at Executive, Council and political levels, with highly developed judgement and stakeholder acumen. 
• Delivering complex master planning, renewal and sustainability initiatives.
• Building strong partnerships with government, industry and community to deliver shared outcomes.
• Driving governance excellence - scoping, prioritising and sequencing major programs of work.
• Championing innovation, evidence-based decision making and organisational transformation.
• Demonstrating integrated project and portfolio leadership - combining strategic context-setting, systems thinking, stakeholder strategy, funding pathways and business case development to guide complex, multi-disciplinary initiatives from concept to delivery.
• You hold a relevant tertiary qualification in management, planning, or a related field, with postgraduate study desirable.

This role is ideal for a purpose-driven leader who is energised by shaping a city’s future and delivering generational impact.   

About Our Organisation:

The City of Charles Sturt is a vibrant community home to around 130,000 people across 105 different cultures. We champion unity in diversity and strive to reflect our community within our workforce, wherever you are from, you are home in the City of Charles Sturt. 

We prioritise customer and employee experience and a supportive environment where everyone belongs. With over 500 employees, our people and our community "Means the World" to us which highlights the importance of our places, our people and our service to the community. 

We work flexibly and support one another. Visit our careers page to explore the benefits of joining our team and talk to us about what flexibility works for you. 

About Our Team:

City Planning and Sustainability is responsible for business and economic development, as well as the greening of our community. This versatile portfolio promotes and supports our local businesses and has a dedicated team coordinating the sustainability and environment strategy of our City. 

The detail:
The position is offered on a full-time, 5-year, fixed term basis.             

For further information about this vacancy, please view the attached position description.

Click ‘Apply for this job’ to submit your application for this vacancy by, 5:00pm Thursday 12 February.

For further information about this vacancy, please view the attached position description.

Enquiries about this position may be made to, 

Belinda Wundke - Executive Assistant to the GM of City Futures on bwundke@charlessturt.sa.gov.au.

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