Associate Director

Are you dreaming of working for a more boutique style planning firm where you’re not just another number?

An aspiring leadership role has become available in leading national planning firm, Mecone, where you can enjoy a flexible work environment with a supportive team as well as the opportunity of career progression and experienced urban planning mentorship.

**Who is Mecone?**

At Mecone, we are committed to creating better urban environments. Above all, we value our people and pride ourselves in the calibre of our employees to deliver superior client outcomes, while fostering an inclusive and diverse culture for our team.

As urban planning specialists, we provide advice and services in strategic planning, statutory planning, integrated land use, transport planning, and urban analytics.

Working with us offers enormous benefits - and not just our rewards recognition and generous bonus scheme Mecone offers the opportunity to be truly valued as an employee in a close-nit team. You will also enjoy interesting and challenging work across metro Sydney with a focus on large-scale transformational projects, and being mentored by the best in the business.

**About the role**

We are looking for an Associate Director who is a passionate and business driven leader to join our Sydney CBD or Western Sydney (based in Parramatta) teams. The role will support the Statutory team and its Directors to provide urban planning service and advice with a focus on major statutory and strategic planning projects.

**About you**
- Degree qualified in relevant discipline
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- 6-10 years’ experience, preferably with work in both private and public planning roles
- Able to lead from the front and mentor other planners
- Commercially astute and effective project manager
- Pragmatic decision maker and ability to work independently
- Australian citizen or appropriate work visa
- Commitment to workplace flexibility, diversity, equality and environmental sustainability

**Your key responsibilities**
- Consultancy Services_
- Demonstrate high level of statutory, strategic and land use planning principles at a strategic and technical level, providing practical and expert planning advice to clients and the project team.
- Provide high-quality deliverables across all three business areas, including but not limited to Planning Proposals, Statement of Environmental Effects, Strategic Planning Reports, Clause 4.6 Variations, Expert advice and reports for Land and Environment Court,
- Prepare, or manage, the preparation of high-quality planning reports adhering to quality assurance practices
- Ability to attend and represent Mecone as a key team leader at client workshops/meetings and provide advice on planning matters
- Project and Team Management_
- Ability to manage and progress projects with mínimal oversight, including direct contact with client PMs
- Awareness and tracking of project budgets
- Management and prioritisation of competing deadlines, alerting Directors where capacity issues are foreseeable
- Prepare monthly project invoices for review by Directors
- Provide mentoring and coaching to team members for technical planning competence and consultancy skills
- Marketing and Business Development_
- Undertake business development activities and make a positive contribution to new business and work pipeline
- Leverage strong property industry network to improve Mecone’s profile and opportunities.
- Prepare fee proposals and tender responses
- Awareness of planning trends and ability to identify further work opportunities from these for existing jobs and clients
- Ability to provide engaging thought leadership, commentary, and project update content for use on social media