Head of Community Development - Active Wellbeing

- Newly created role
- Sydney CBD & Inner Suburbs (Field-based)

About the Organisation

Our client is exclusively partnering with Johnson Recruitment in their search for the newly created Head of Community Development role with a focus on Active Wellbeing. Our client is Australia's fastest-growing community management and active leisure organisation, currently piloting a pioneering 'Active Wellbeing' framework that leads the industry.

Partnering exclusively with a premier local government authority on a major contract secured until 2030, they steward a flagship portfolio of six world-class community, aquatic, and fitness hubs. This progressive organisation is moving far beyond traditional facilities management to embed an outcomes-focused, preventative health model transforming physical spaces into inclusive community hubs that champion social connection, health equity, and grassroots impact.

About the Role

This is a newly created, strategic, and field-based leadership role designed purely to drive community outreach and social impact outcomes. Strategic restructuring has separated this position from commercial programming (such as fitness memberships and learn-to-swim operations), allowing the incoming leader to focus entirely on community equity and external engagement.

Leading and building a small team you will be operating at the intersection of strategy, macro-level change management, and grassroots engagement. You will ensure that the voices and lived experiences of diverse populations directly shape localised service delivery.

Key Responsibilities

- Drive Strategic Active Wellbeing:



Lead the development, implementation, and continuous evolution of place-based, community-centred initiatives across a portfolio of premier city sites.
- Embed Community Voice & Co-Design: Champion robust consultation and co-design frameworks, ensuring lived experience actively guides programming for priority populations, with a critical focus on diverse and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
- Cultivate Cross-Sector Partnerships: Build, influence, and leverage high-level relationships across the broader health and community ecosystems, including public health networks, primary health organisations, and community-controlled entities.
- Change Management & Cultural Leadership: Partner with operational leadership to shift organisational culture toward an outcomes-focused model, guiding internal and external stakeholders through collaboration and influence rather than direct authority.
- Measure Social Impact: Oversee sophisticated evaluation and reporting frameworks that look beyond simple participation numbers to capture genuine social, health, and equity outcomes.
- Team Building & Capability Development: Mentor, coach, and scale the community outreach team, fostering an inclusive, psychologically protected, and trauma-informed work environment.





About You

This role demands an experienced leader with the emotional intelligence to balance complex community outcomes with commercial realities. This is not a "step-up" position; it requires an established professional who knows which operational and strategic levers to pull to achieve cultural change.

- Proven Senior Leadership: Extensive experience within community development, public health, social impact, active communities, or related sectors.
- Systems-Level Thinker: Demonstrated success translating high-level policy and strategy into practical, localised delivery models, with a proven ability to build service frameworks from the ground up.
- Master Collaborator & Change Agent: Exceptional relationship management skills with a track record of driving cultural change and bringing people along on a journey toward a new way of operating.
- Passion for Equity & Adaptability: Deep experience breaking down participation barriers and tailoring engagement to diverse groups facing systemic hurdles.
- Qualifications & Compliance: Ideally you will have tertiary qualifications in Public Health, Community Development, Social Sciences, or a related field are preferred (though equivalent senior experience will be highly valued). A current Working with Children Check (WWCC), National Police Check, and First Aid/CPR certifications are mandatory prior to commencement.

Johnson Recruitment actively embraces diversity in the workforce through inclusive community representation of gender, culture, thought, and work arrangements.

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📌 Head of Community Development - Active Wellbeing (City of Sydney)
🏢 Johnson Recruitment
📍 City of Sydney