Principal - Flood Modelling

Unique opportunity to shape flood planning for Melbourne
- Newly created role
- Be part of the decade that matters in this influential role

**The Company**
Melbourne Water’s services range from providing clean drinking water, treating sewage in order to recover and re-use valued resources, planning to manage flooding, and keeping all 25,000km of Melbourne’s rivers, creeks and catchments healthy. Effectively they manage all parts of the water cycle that are essential to Melbourne’s way of life today, tomorrow and for generations to come.

**The Role**
Be part of Melbourne Water’s ambitious goals in the decade that matters as part of a passionate team doing meaningful work to provide innovation and improvement of assets that enhances the life and liveability of communities. Melbourne Water is the Floodplain Manager for the greater Melbourne area with responsibilities for managing flood risk, both now and into the future.

The Principal - Flood Modelling is a critical role that will lead the practice of flood modelling, build key industry partnerships and provide guidance to the many flood practitioners at Melbourne Water. The role will support delivery of the Flood Strategy - Port Phillip and Westernport, ensuring that “the right information is available at the right time to the people who need it” across the areas of emergency management, development planning and flood mitigation.

As a senior leader within Melbourne Water, the role will provide essential technical support and guidance to other senior leaders and executive teams.

Key responsibilities include:

- Establish the practice of flood modelling for the greater Melbourne area to ensure essential information is available when needed across the fields of emergency management, development planning and flood mitigation.
- Guide the development of the flood modelling practice for Melbourne and determine appropriate methods for use in the context of the Floodplain Manager of a large city and rapidly growing urban area.
- Position Melbourne Water with the right technical knowledge and tools to prepare and respond to climate change.
- Assess new technologies across both flood modelling and digital platforms and determine when and how these should be adopted within the regional flood modelling program.
- Develop and maintain key industry relationships across floodplain managers, local government, flood modelling consultants and universities.
- Develop strong internal networks at Melbourne Water to support the practice of flood modelling and the delivery of programs.
- Lead the design of guidelines and processes used across Melbourne Water to develop appropriate flood information.
- Provide technical guidance to Melbourne Water to direct the response to the opportunities and challenges embedded within Victoria’s Big Build.
- Working with external expert witnesses, represent Melbourne Water at VCAT and Planning Panel Hearings.

**About you**
This position is a rare opportunity to be part of shaping the future programs at Melbourne Water in response to flood management. Your drive will come from wanting to serve the greater community and creating a legacy of change for Melbourne.

You will be seen as a technical expert in flood modelling with the ability to educate and influence a broad audience. You will also bring a continuous improvement focus to your work and seek out innovative and new ways of working to better the flood modelling capability of Melbourne Water.

Ideally you will possess:

- Tertiary qualification in engineering, project management or related technical discipline with at least 10 years’ professional experience.
- Experience in coaching and mentoring.
- Demonstrable experience building industry partnerships and relationships.
- Strong influencing skills, able to achieve cut through complex issues in a relationship based environment.
- Confidence operating with uncertainty, identifying potential pathways and negotiating appropriate next steps with stakeholders.
- Highly developed technical leadership skills in flood modelling and mapping.
- Extensive expertise in negotiating with a range of stakeholders on technically complex issues.
- Knowledge of the Planning Scheme Amendment Process & what makes these a success.
- Experience in developing standards and guidelines for adoption by Melbourne Water and our customers.

**The Rewards and Culture**
This is also a rare opportunity to be part of a newly created team within Melbourne Water, a chance to really make your mark on how floods are better managed to keep communities safe.

Melbourne Water takes enormous pride in cultivating a culture that holistically benefits their people and the wider Melbourne community. The pillars of their culture are based on Flexibility, Impact, Growth & Development, and People.

They are committed to flexible working in a variety of manners including hybrid work, varied start/finish times, purchased leave, part time work, and 9 day fortnights.

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