Job Description

Acknowledgement of Country

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation

Role highlights

• Great opportunity to lead strategic procurement for a national organisation
• Apply your procurement expertise to drive value and continuous improvement
• Join a high-performing team supporting complex and impactful programs!

About CSIRO

As Australia's national science agency, CSIRO is solving the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. Many of our iconic innovations were once considered impossible until someone, just like you, joined us and took on the challenge.

Visit CSIRO.au for more information.

The opportunity

CSIRO Finance provides customer‑focused information and value‑adding, strategic insight to support and enable financial sustainability through the effective and efficient use of resources. Within this, Finance Operations ensures strong financial governance, compliance, and the delivery of key financial processes and services across the organisation.

As part of this function, the Strategic Procurement team supports the organisation in achieving value‑for‑money outcomes through best‑practice procurement activities. The team provides guidance across the planning, sourcing, and management of goods and services, ensuring alignment with procurement frameworks and legislative requirements.

In this role, you will lead a strategic procurement function and provide expert guidance to support complex procurement activities across the organisation. You will work closely with internal stakeholders to develop sourcing strategies, lead commercial negotiations, and ensure procurement outcomes align with business priorities, governance frameworks, and risk considerations. You will also drive continuous improvement initiatives, strengthen procurement practices, and contribute to broader finance transformation activities.

You will bring strong leadership capability, with experience managing and developing a team in a dynamic environment. You will be comfortable operating at a strategic level, building trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, and balancing compliance with commercial and operational outcomes. Your ability to exercise sound judgement, work with sensitive information, and lead through change will be key to your success in this role.

If you are passionate about delivering strategic procurement outcomes, leading people, and driving continuous improvement, this is a great opportunity to make a meaningful impact within a complex and evolving organisation, and we would love to hear from you!

Your high-level duties will include:

• Leading and developing a strategic procurement function, driving continuous improvement and value‑for‑money outcomes.
• Partnering with stakeholders to plan and deliver complex procurement activities aligned to organisational priorities.
• Leading commercial negotiations and establishing strong, sustainable supplier partnerships.
• Developing and implementing sourcing strategies informed by market insights and future demand analysis.
• Ensuring compliance with procurement policies, governance frameworks and the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPRs).
• Managing supplier performance, contracts and risks to ensure delivery against quality, cost and timeline expectations.
• Driving innovation and process improvements across procurement practices, systems and team capability.
• Providing leadership, coaching and performance management to a multi‑layered procurement team.

Role particulars

Location and office arrangements Canberra ACT, Melbourne VIC, Brisbane QLD are preferred; Other major cities with CSIRO office presence may be considered; Hybrid working available

Salary: AU$135K – AU$158K per annum plus up to 15.4% superannuation

Tenure & work schedule: Indefinite – Full-time (preferred), Part-time may be considered

Reference: 103159

As the successful candidate, you will bring:

• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop a procurement and contracting team, ensuring compliance with the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPRs) while continuously strengthening strategic procurement practices.
• Strong technical expertise in procurement and contract management, including the application of governance frameworks, policy interpretation, and risk management.
• Demonstrated capability to analyse complex internal and external environments and provide high‑quality strategic procurement advice to senior leadership.
• Proven ability to establish and maintain trusted advisor relationships with senior Finance leaders, Executives, and Board‑level stakeholders.
• Demonstrated leadership and change management capability, including leading the development and implementation of strategic procurement and financial improvement initiatives.
• Proven people leadership capability, including fostering a cohesive, respectful and high‑performing team culture, and managing complex performance or people matters with integrity and professionalism.
• Demonstrated commitment to CSIRO Values, Code of Conduct and health, safety and wellbeing responsibilities, including leading by example.
• Demonstrated ability to operate proactively and effectively in complex, changing environments, balancing competing priorities and delivering outcomes during periods of change.
• Desirable: Previous experience leading a finance team in an operational environment would be highly desirable.

For full details about this role, please review the

Not sure if you meet all the criteria?

While it is CSIRO policy that the successful candidate must meet all the essential criteria, there are many ways to demonstrate this. Don’t let the list discourage you. If you are unsure about applying, please reach out to the contact person in the Position Description.

Setting you up for success

We are committed to providing a recruitment process that is fair, equitable and accessible to everyone. We recognise that it may be helpful for us to adjust our process to make it equitable for your individual situation. Please contact the Talent Acquisition Partner via email (see details in the Position Description) and let us know how we can support you.

Eligibility

Applications for this position are open to Australian Citizens, who are able and willing to obtain and maintain a security clearance at the Baseline level

Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.

Life at CSIRO and flexible work arrangements

We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work. We can discuss flexible work arrangements with you during the recruitment process. CSIRO also offers a range of leave entitlements, benefits and career development opportunities. To find out more, visit Careers at CSIRO

Inclusion and belonging

Solving Australia's greatest challenges takes a diversity of minds and lived experiences. We know diverse teams are more effective and deliver more innovative outcomes. As an equal employment opportunity organisation, we are committed to creating diverse and inclusive teams where people feel they belong. We recognise true diversity encompasses all ages, abilities, cultures, faiths, levels of education, genders, sexualities, diversity of thought and much more. We focus on hiring people who share our values of People First, Further Together, Making it Real and Trusted.

CSIRO holds Gold Status for the Australian Workplace Equality Index for LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and a Science in Australia Gender Equity Bronze Award.

Child safety

CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs. View our Child Safe Policy

How to apply

Please apply online, and provide a CV and a detailed cover letter, responding to each of the selection criteria in detail, that best demonstrate your motivation and ability to meet the requirements of this role. Please attach your selection criteria responses to your cover letter as one document.

Applications close

31 May 2026, 11:00pm AEST