Transformation Manager

Company Description:

At Summerset, it's the passion and dedication of our people that bring our villages to life. Across all our roles, we work together as one team to create the best possible life for our residents.

As one of New Zealand's leading retirement village operators, we're continuously evolving and investing in better ways of working to support our residents, our people, and our growing business.

We're looking for an experienced Transformation Manager to join us on a 2-year fixed-term contract and play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering transformation across our Finance and People & Culture functions.

Job Description:

Reporting to the CFO, the Transformation Manager is responsible for leading and delivering Finance and People & Culture transformation initiatives that improve how work gets done across the organisation.

Partnering closely with senior leaders across Finance, People & Culture, Technology and the wider business, you'll develop and drive an integrated transformation roadmap spanning people, process, technology and data initiatives. This role combines strategic leadership with hands-on delivery, helping establish governance frameworks, drive prioritisation, develop business cases, and deliver meaningful change that improves efficiency, effectiveness, employee experience, controls and scalability.

What you'll be doing

Key areas of focus include:

• Developing and delivering an integrated transformation roadmap across Finance and People & Culture, aligning initiatives to strategic priorities and business outcomes.
• Establishing governance frameworks, driving prioritisation, and leading the successful delivery of transformation initiatives across people, process, technology and data.
• Identifying and implementing opportunities to simplify processes, improve system capability, leverage automation, strengthen controls, and enhance employee experience through sustainable business improvement.
• Developing business cases and strategic recommendations, evaluating operating models and technology solutions, and providing commercial insights to support decision-making.
• Building strong stakeholder relationships, influencing change adoption, and ensuring initiatives deliver measurable and lasting benefits to the organisation.

This role is Fixed Term (2 Years), please click here to view position description.

Qualifications:

About You

You are a strategic thinker who enjoys turning ideas into practical outcomes. You thrive in environments where you can bring structure to complexity, influence stakeholders, and drive meaningful change. Comfortable operating at both strategic and operational levels, you're equally capable of shaping future priorities and rolling up your sleeves to help deliver them.

You bring strong commercial acumen, excellent relationship-building skills, and the ability to lead through influence rather than authority. Most importantly, you're proactive, outcomes-focused and motivated by creating lasting improvements across people, processes and systems.

You'll bring:

• Experience working across Finance, HR/People systems, enterprise systems or digital transformation initiatives.
• Experience developing business cases, investment proposals and executive-level recommendations.
• Strong understanding of governance, programme delivery and change management principles.
• Strong programme leadership, stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• Demonstrated success delivering process improvement, system optimisation and change initiatives.
• Excellent analytical, commercial and business case development capability.
• The ability to navigate ambiguity, balance competing priorities and deliver results.
• A collaborative, pragmatic and solutions-focused approach.

Additional Information:

Why join us? 

This is an opportunity to play a meaningful role in shaping the future of two critical functions at Summerset. Working alongside the CFO, Chief People Officer and other senior leaders, you'll have the scope to influence strategic priorities, improve organisational capability, and deliver transformation initiatives that create lasting business value.

You'll join an organisation with ambitious growth plans, where you'll have the autonomy to challenge thinking, drive change, and see the tangible impact of your work across people, processes, systems and ways of working.

Benefits include:

• Flexible working, including up to two days working from home each week and flexible start and finish times
• Southern Cross Health Insurance
• Share scheme participation
• Ongoing professional development and leadership growth opportunities
• The chance to work directly with executive leaders on organisation-wide strategic initiatives
• A collaborative, values-led culture focused on delivering the best outcomes for our people and residents

Ready to bring your skills to life?

If you're an experienced transformation leader who thrives on improving how organisations operate and delivering meaningful change across people, process and technology, we'd love to hear from you. Join Summerset and help shape the future of our Finance and People & Culture functions through initiatives that create lasting impact.

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. If you tick most of the boxes and are excited by the opportunity, don’t hesitate to apply.  Applications close on 22nd September.