Build the operating engine behind a specialist consultancy

Permanent full time | Hybrid, east coast Australia | Reports to the Founder | National travel

You will build this yourself. This is not a role that supervises people who build.

You have led in operational environments. You know how to make complex work happen. You have also worked out that you are good at building the systems and relationships behind great delivery.

The Jonah Group works with organisations where the consequences of getting it wrong are severe. Mining, rail, energy and heavy industry. Our practice sits across critical risk, human and organisational performance, safety culture and leadership development, and we work at every level from the board to the crew. Twenty-three years of it. We save lives and protect businesses.

That is why this role exists. Our client base is growing faster than the systems that support it, and we need a senior operator to build how the business runs, then run it.

What you will own

Build the operating system. Create and embed simple, scalable systems for mobilisation, resourcing, contractor management, project controls, reporting and commercial visibility. Use technology and AI to reduce key-person dependency. You will design it and you will implement it.

Run the portfolio. Hold the forward view across engagements, consultant capacity, milestones, risks, budgets, scope and margin, so problems surface before they become urgent.

Strengthen delivery. Turn our programs and methodologies into repeatable delivery. Facilitator guides, templates, version control, mobilisation discipline, reporting. Protect the quality of the work while you scale it.





Operations and delivery, from day one

Roughly 70 percent operations, systems and delivery management. The balance is client facing, starting immediately. You will sit in discovery, stakeholder interviews and client reviews from your first weeks, moving into co-facilitation of our leadership and safety programs as your understanding builds. This is deliberate. You cannot design how work mobilises if you have never been in the room where it lands. The chargeable component of your remuneration is tied to this work.

The test we apply

We are looking for someone who has seen fragmented or person-dependent processes cost an organisation time, money or quality, worked out what was needed, personally built the fix, and stayed close enough to implementation that people actually used it.

Sponsoring a transformation is not the same thing. Neither is inheriting a mature system. We need someone who can build the machine and make the machine run.

Who fits

- You anticipate constraints and bring recommendations, not questions.
- You create structure without becoming rigid when clients and priorities move.
- You can work directly with a founder and turn strategic intent into an operating plan.
- You think well out loud, and you act. Ideas turn into movement quickly.




- People find you easy to deal with and hard to dismiss. You build rapport quickly, and you challenge in a way that opens thinking rather than shutting it down.

Our preferred pathway is a trade, engineering or technical start, then operational leadership, then a move into safety, transformation, organisational improvement or consulting. A consulting or organisational development career with deep operational credibility works equally well. We care about demonstrated capability, not credential prestige.

Experience in a lean, founder-led qualified services business is highly regarded.

What it is like here

We work with organisations that have a genuine long-term commitment to delivering operational impact. That shapes who we are and how we work.

Autonomy and accountability, in equal measure. No layers between you and the decision. Dynamic and nimble by design.

We expect you to treat the business as your own. That is the standard, and it comes with the authority to match.

You will work closely with the founder and hold senior client relationships from week one. If you need the structure of a large organisation, this will not suit you.

We are hiring for the long term. This is a role to grow into, not a role to pass through.

Location, travel and remuneration

- Remote from the east coast of Australia.
- National client travel is required, including multi-day site visits.
- Base salary plus superannuation, plus a performance-linked component tied to client-facing work. Set above market for this level. We confirm numbers in the first conversation.

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📌 Head of Operations and Delivery (Queensland)
🏢 Jonah Group
📍 Queensland