About Us
The Essential Services Commission is Victoria’s independent economic regulator of essential services supplied by a range of industries. The commission’s functions include:

The commission’s 2025 to 2029 Strategic Plan sets a clear vision for fair and dependable essential services, today and tomorrow. To deliver this vision, the commission is focused on creating long term impact across four areas: efficient pricing, equitable services, resilience and sustainability, and integrity and trust.

People are central to this work. The Chief People and Culture Officer will play a key role in building the culture, leadership capability, workforce insight and organisational confidence needed to support the commission’s strategy. Working closely with the Chief Executive Officer, commissioners and executive team, the role will lead a people agenda that strengthens inclusion, psychological safety, wellbeing, capability, accountability and alignment between people practices and strategic priorities.

This is an opportunity to contribute to an organisation with a clear public purpose and a direct connection to the everyday lives of Victorians. The successful candidate will help shape a workplace where people feel safe, respected and supported, where leaders are equipped to lead through change, and where the commission’s values of integrity, collaboration, impartiality, excellence and respect are reflected in the way work is led and delivered.

About the Role
Reporting to the Executive Director, Governance, Legal, Operations and Engagement, the Chief People & Culture will lead the commission’s People & Culture function and play an important role in shaping the organisation’s workforce, culture and capability agenda.

This is a strategic and hands on leadership role with responsibility for embedding the People Strategy, strengthening organisational capability and supporting leaders to deliver through change. The role will also continue to mature the commission’s approach to workforce data, wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, and people related governance.

Leading a stable and capable team, the Chief People and Culture Officer will focus on empowering leaders, improving ways of working and strengthening the function’s advisory capability. A key priority will be to ensure People and Culture is positioned as a trusted, proactive and insight led partner to the business.

The role will lead work across psychosocial safety and wellbeing, workforce reporting and data storytelling, gender equality, diversity and inclusion, leadership support, and organisational capability. It will also help executive leaders take shared ownership of people and culture outcomes and ensure people practices are clearly aligned to the Commission’s strategic priorities.

This is a meaningful opportunity to contribute to an organisation with a clear public purpose and a direct connection to the everyday lives of Victorians. The successful candidate will help build the conditions for people to do their best work in service of fair, dependable and trusted essential services.

About You
You are an experienced People and Culture leader with the judgement, credibility and relationship skills to operate effectively in a high governance, public purpose environment. You bring strong strategic HR capability, sound employee and industrial relations experience, and the confidence to advise, influence and respectfully challenge senior stakeholders where required.

You are equally comfortable working at an enterprise level and ensuring practical delivery through your team. With an engaging, collaborative and authentic leadership style, you build trust, create clarity and strengthen capability. You are outcomes focused and know how to support teams to deliver in complex environments with high expectations.

You will bring a strong understanding of contemporary people practice, including workforce planning, organisational development, wellbeing, inclusion, employee relations, leadership support and workforce reporting. You will also bring the confidence to use data and insight to inform decisions, shape conversations and support better organisational outcomes.

Experience within the Victorian Public Sector, a statutory authority, regulator, government department or a similarly complex public purpose environment will be highly regarded. Candidates with strong governance exposure and the ability to navigate public sector frameworks, stakeholder expectations and organisational change will be well suited.

For more information, please see the Position Description.

How to apply
The Essential Services Commission has partnered with Davidson to manage the recruitment process for this role.

To apply, applications must be submitted through the Davidson job portal using the following link: Chief People & Culture Officer – Essential Services Commission job in Government & Defence in Melbo

Applications should include:

For any questions not outlined in the PD and for a confidential discussion, please contact Natasha Diamond on 0412 822 348 or Alex Mummé on 0474 434 868.

Applications close on 11:59pm, Tuesday 9 June 2026.

Applicants must have corresponding work rights for the advertised employment period to be appointed to this role. Ongoing positions are only available to Australian/New Zealand citizens or Australian Permanent Residents.

Preferred applicants are required to undergo mandatory pre-employment screening, which includes a national criminal history check, right to work verification, qualification checks, statutory declaration disclosing any previous misconduct investigations and declaration of private interests.

28 May 2026