Senior Change Manager

If you're a senior change professional who thrives in complexity, enjoys fast paced delivery and thrives on being a trusted subject matter expert and leading change at the heart of major transformation, Stats NZ | Tatauranga Aotearoa are seeking a Senior Change Manager.
As a Senior Change Manager, you'll play a pivotal role in supporting large-scale transformation programmes — ensuring change is not an afterthought, but a core enabler of confident, controlled delivery.
This role offers an opportunity to apply your expertise at scale, add a significant transformation programme to your experience, and deliver meaningful public value in a complex, fast‐moving environment.
Mō te tūnga | About the role This is a senior, delivery‐embedded change role operating at the centre of a complex and evolving transformation.
The role is homed within our Enterprise Portfolio Office (EPO), providing you with access to a strong community of practice where project and change professionals actively share tools, guidance and lessons learned.
Strong change leadership is critical to delivery confidence, not a peripheral function.
You will operate as a trusted partner to programme leadership, senior stakeholders and technical teams, shaping and leading a clear, programme‐level change approach that supports delivery at pace.
Day to day, your focus will be on: actively managing and integrating change across interdependent workstreams anticipating cumulative people, process and organisational impacts bringing clarity, structure and confidence where there is ambiguity or pressure Working closely alongside our technical delivery teams, you'll translate complex milestones, risks and decisions into clear, actionable insights about readiness and impact — without needing to be the technical expert yourself.
You will be relied upon as the single source of truth for change‐related information, enabling effective governance, decision‐making and shared understanding.
Just as importantly, you'll play a stabilising leadership role — maintaining delivery confidence when priorities shift, advising with sound judgement, and constructively challenging where needed to protect outcomes.
You'll also contribute to lifting the maturity of change practice across Stats NZ by sharing insight, artefacts and approaches through the EPO change community.
This is a 12-month fixed‐term role through to 21 May 2027 You combine strategic thinking with a strong delivery mindset.
You build trust quickly, move comfortably between senior leaders and delivery teams, and are known for your integrity, clarity and follow‐through.
You bring: Proven experience leading change across large‐scale, complex and fast‐moving transformation programmes, ideally within the NZ public service Exceptional stakeholder management capability, with the confidence to manage up, influence at all levels, and constructively engage sceptical or challenging stakeholders Credibility working alongside technical teams, translating complex delivery into clear people, process and readiness impacts A highly organised, disciplined approach to documentation, decision tracking and impact management, enabling transparency and effective governance Strong systems thinking, with the ability to connect the dots across workstreams, dependencies and priorities You exercise sound judgement, knowing when to apply formal change discipline and when to adapt pragmatically to maintain momentum and confidence.
Above all, you bring resilience, adaptability and a positive leadership presence — providing calm, steady guidance in complex environments and inspiring confidence that change is being actively, thoughtfully and effectively managed.
Stats NZ | Tatauranga Aotearoa provides trusted data, insights and systems that support better decisions for Aotearoa, now and into the future.
Our work has national significance and is grounded in integrity, transparency and public value.
How to apply | Me pēhea te tuku tono If this sounds like the kind of challenge you're looking for — and you're motivated by meaningful work that will strengthen your experience and deliver real public value — we'd love to hear from you.
Click Apply nowto submit your application.
The position description is available on the right‐hand side of the page.
Applications will be reviewed as they are received, and we may move quickly to interviews.