"Executive Dean, Faculty of Health"

Job Details

Executive Dean, Faculty of Health

Southern Cross University | Gold Coast, Lismore and Coffs Harbour

Southern Cross University (SCU) is seeking an outstanding academic leader to shape the next phase of growth and impact as Executive Dean, Faculty of Health. This is a rare opportunity for a leader who can inspire excellence, foster a values-driven culture, and lead a high-performing and collaborative academic community.

As Executive Dean, you will lead a Faculty with strong momentum and significant potential. The role will focus on accelerating the Faculty’s next phase of expansion, deepening partnerships with industry health services and communities, and positioning the Faculty as a national leader in health education and research.

Importantly, the role extends beyond traditional academic leadership. The Faculty of Health represents a significant and complex enterprise within the University, encompassing a large workforce, extensive clinical infrastructure, multiple accredited programs, and strong external partnerships. The Executive Dean will therefore bring both academic credibility and the commercial acumen required to lead and grow a substantial academic business.

The Opportunity

The Faculty of Health at SCU is ambitious, outward‑looking and committed to advancing health education, research and community engagement. Accredited programs span nursing, midwifery, allied health, naturopathy, social work and health sciences, supported by extensive clinical placements, health clinics, laboratories and two established research centres.

As Executive Dean, you will work closely with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic (DVCA), Vice-Chancellor and the Executive Leadership Team to set and advance the Faculty’s academic vision. You will lead with purpose, championing a culture of collaboration, inclusivity and high performance, while ensuring teaching excellence, impactful research, and community engagement remain at the core of everything we do.

Key Challenges and Priorities

This role requires a highly effective leader who can navigate complexity and ambiguity, inspire teams and lead culture, while also bringing a strong sense of commercial discipline and strategic focus.

Key priorities for the role include:

• Accelerating Faculty growth and expansion: Identify and progress strategic opportunities to expand the Faculty’s programs, research activity, clinical services and partnerships in ways that are aligned to workforce demand, community need and the University’s broader strategy.
• Sustaining research momentum: Building on recent growth in research income and performance by sharpening the Faculty’s research agenda, strengthening research capability across disciplines and supporting emerging and mid‑career academics, and enabling interdisciplinary and translational research.
• Leading a diverse academic portfolio: Provide strong academic leadership across a broad disciplinary base, recognising the distinct cultures, accreditation requirements and workforce dynamics within nursing, midwifery, allied health and health sciences.
• Deepening strategic partnerships - Strengthen engagement with health services, government and industry partners to secure high-quality clinical placements, expand clinic based education and services, enable research translation and support sustainable program growth.
• Leading a complex academic enterprise: Provide strong oversight of the Faculty’s health clinics, laboratories, science‑based facilities and workforce. Ensure robust governance, financial stewardship, safety and risk management and regulatory compliance across complex clinical and professional environments.
• Positioning the Faculty for sustainable growth: Identify and progress strategic national and international opportunities, while aligning growth with capability, workforce needs and the Universities strategic priorities.
• Leading culture and values: Model and embed SCU’s values, fostering an inclusive, collaborative and high-performing culture where staff and students feel supported, empowered and motivated to succeed.

About You

You will be an internationally recognised academic leader, at Professor level, with experience leading a large School, Faculty, or equivalent academic unit in a complex higher education or health-related environment.

Equally important, you will bring the mindset and capability to lead a large and complex enterprise. You will be comfortable managing significant budgets, infrastructure, partnerships and workforce considerations, and will bring the commercial insight required to grow programs, build sustainable partnerships and deliver long term impact.

You will bring:

• A strong record of research leadership, including building research capability, securing competitive funding and delivering impactful outcomes.
• Demonstrated experience leading and managing a substantial academic enterprise, including financial oversight, workforce leadership and operational complexity.
• The commercial and strategic acumen to identify and pursue opportunities for growth, including new programs, partnerships, markets and clinical services.
• A deep commitment to excellence in teaching and learning, supporting scholarship in education and creating academic career pathways that recognise both education and research.
• Demonstrated success in external engagement, including developing strategic partnerships with health services, government and industry in regional, national and international contexts and acting as an effective ambassador for your Faculty and institution.
• An authentic, transparent and inclusive leadership style, with the ability to inspire trust, foster collaboration, and enable high performance across a diverse academic community. A commitment to leading culture and embedding values across the Faculty, ensuring staff feel supported, engaged and empowered.
• The agility to move between strategic, external‑facing work and operational detail, and the willingness to activity engage in the day to day realities of a large and complex Faculty.

Why Southern Cross University?

SCU offers a distinctive leadership environment: regionally embedded, globally connected, and driven by a clear social purpose. The University is bold in ambition, values collaboration, and supports leaders who are prepared to lead with authenticity and impact.

The Faculty of Health is a cornerstone of SCU’s future, holding significant physical infrastructure, expanding clinical services, and playing a critical role in community engagement across the three main campuses (Gold Coast, Coffs Harbour, and Lismore).

How to Apply

Southern Cross University welcomes applications from Australian and international candidates. Confidential discussions are encouraged.

Please contact Dr Courtenay Atwell at scuexecdean@kornferry.com to request a copy of the candidate brochure.

Applications are due by Wednesday 8th April and should include a brief cover letter and copy of your CV.