Building on the success of Advance HE’s Aurora initiative and its 10k alumnae in the UK, our Senior Women’s Leadership Development Programme and our ‘She Leads’ international women’s only programme we are seeking inspirational and experienced facilitators based in Australia to join the team and work with us as associates to design and deliver leadership development and networking opportunities for women leaders in Australian HE.
Following a period of market research and consulting with our members and partners in Australia we have identified an opportunity to pilot a contextualised version of our Aurora Programme in Australia in 2024.
Closing Date for applications: 5pm AEST on Friday 29 September 2023 – with initial conversations taking place shortly after.
We are looking for leadership development experts who are as comfortable supporting individuals as they are delivering content to 250 people, and who can inspire the next generation of leaders in HE in Australia.
About Advance HE
Advance HE works globally with its 400 members and global partners to help higher education shape its future. We bring together HE-focused expertise in teaching and learning; equality, diversity and inclusion; leadership and governance, to help universities to deliver a world-class experience for their students. We do this through the provision of specialist knowledge and resources, externally recognised benchmarking and recognition schemes, and a member-focused, collaborative approach.
Advance HE offers a wide portfolio of leadership development opportunities both in the UK and globally supporting all levels of leadership in higher education from early career academic and professional services staff through to vice-chancellors and principals. This activity is complimented by our teaching and learning Fellowship scheme which currently has a membership of 174k globally and our international charter marks including our Athena Swan gender equality charter currently delivered in Australia in partnership with SAGE.
Introducing Aurora
Aurora was developed and launched in 2013 in response to the Leadership Foundation’s (now Advance HE) stimulus paper ‘Women and Higher Education: Absences and Aspiration’, written by Professor Louise Morley (January 2013), which showed that there were fewer women in the most senior positions in higher education than ten years previous. The paper identified areas that could be addressed to change this and Aurora was born.
Aurora was our first leadership development offer for women only. It blends formal development and education, self-directed study, mentoring, action learning and is run in close partnership with HE institutions to address the under-representation of women in leadership positions in the sector. Led by a diverse team of leadership experts and facilitators and with a range of inputs from external speakers, participants explore four key areas associated with leadership success: Identity, Impact and Voice; Core Leadership; Politics and Influence, and Adaptive Leadership Skills. Since its launch in 2013 more than 10,000 women from over 200 different institutions across the UK and Ireland have participated in Aurora.
Advance HE works closely with nominated contacts (Champions) at each participating institution, as they recruit and support nominated programme participants and we often bring together the Champion community to connect, collaborate, share best practice and feed into enhancements to Aurora. In delivering any bespoke programme for Australia we would aim to include many of these critical elements.
More information on the programme can be found on the Advance HE website
About the role
Person Specification
Potential Aurora facilitators would demonstrate the following knowledge, skills and experience
- Experience of designing, managing and delivering engaging, inspiring, high quality leadership developmental content, including to large audiences (100 plus participants); both face-to-face and virtually
- The knowledge of current leadership modalities, up-to-date innovative leadership thinking and practice
- Ability to expertly intersperse a mix of personal experience and learnings with structured content
- A commitment to values of equality, diversity and inclusion, in all aspects of a programme’s design and delivery
- A broad understanding of current issues in the higher education sector both in Australia and globally; and the leadership that this requires moving forward
- A varied professional experience, including ideally experience from outside of HE;
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, flexibility, and resilience, to work constructively as a part of the Advance HE programme delivery team;
- Ability to engage a wide and diverse network of contributors in leadership development;
- Ideally experience of 121 coaching, coaching approaches and / or facilitating action learning, including ideally a relevant qualification
- Experience of working internationally (valuable but not essential).
Time commitment
Given we are still in the scoping stage an accurate breakdown of committed time is difficult at this stage but we would anticipate 5 – 20 days between October 2023 and December 2024 of design and delivery. Depending on the success of our pilot activity and growth of our offer there may be an increased opportunity to deliver programmes for us in the later part of 2024. We are ideally looking for a small group of associates to work with us on this project.
Advance HE also runs a number of bespoke leadership development programmes so there may be further opportunities for the right candidate to contribute to those beyond this project.
Submitting an application
To apply for the role, please click on ‘Apply for this job’ to send us an email attaching the following information:
- Cover letter of no more than 800 words in length, addressing the criteria relating to knowledge, skills and experience and why you are interested in the joining the Australian Aurora development and delivery team
- CV (no more than 2 pages) summarising your professional experience qualifications and accreditations
- Details of 2 referees provided on the CV to include:
- Name of Referee
- Name and Address of their organisation
- Nature of Relationship (Manager / Client)
- Contact email for the referee
Closing Date for applications: 5pm AEST on Friday 29 September 2023 – with initial conversations taking place shortly after.
