Head of Government Relations

**Our Purpose**

At Xero, we’re here to help you supercharge your business. We do this by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps. When that happens, we’re not only making life better for small business, we’ll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.

The Government Relations and Public Policy Team plays a key role within the Xero organisation. The team is responsible for creating and maximising regulatory tailwinds, while mitigating risks. You will bring skills, expertise and networks to contribute to Xero’s policy influence agenda, with a focus on digital tax and open banking. You will make your impact by:

- Developing and executing stakeholder engagement strategies and tactical campaigns across the ANZ region to progress Xero’s highly policy objectives;
- Monitoring a broad set of political issues to ensure the global policy team, ANZ business leaders and business units are making decisions informed by the highest quality political environment information and;
- Providing political advice to externally focussed ANZ Go-To-Market (GTM) teams to build and protect Xero’s reputation in an increasingly tense political environment.

While you will be responsible for Xero’s public sector strategy and execution in ANZ, you will be supported by a world class public policy team and leadership team which encourages smart risk taking.

**What you'll do**:
- With a 75:25 split of focus between Australia and New Zealand, you will be responsible for coordinating and delivering digital tax and open banking public policy influence, helping it deliver its mission to supercharge small businesses.
- **Strategic planning**:

- Spearhead the development and integration of government relations strategies into the overall ANZ business strategy, providing expert guidance to the ANZ Leadership Team on navigating complex policy environments.
- You will plan integrated campaigns with ANZ Communications and Marketing teams to position Xero as policy thought leaders, transparently advocating for reform which carries shared value outcomes for small businesses, Xero and the community.
- You will identify and prioritise reactive and proactive engagement opportunities, estimate business impact and partner with the public policy team to fine tune proposals to form the basis of your engagement activities.
- **Campaign planning & execution**
- Lead the development and execution of proactive policy agendas that shape the future of tax and technology regulation in the ANZ region, directly impacting Xero's long-term business objectives.
- Success relies firstly on your understanding of the Australian political dynamic and processes, and your capability to use it to your advantage. Secondly, success will rely on your ability to build and activate a diverse array of high-value policy relationships. You will be challenged to design creative engagement campaigns utilising novel tactics, to redefine best practice government relations.
- Cultivate and maintain relationships with senior government officials, industry leaders, and key influencers to advance Xero's position on critical tax and technology policy issues.
- **Insights**
- You will ensure ANZ stakeholders are aware of political issue insights in a timely manner. You will socialise insights from external engagements in a structured way, and maintain rolling issue briefs. You will also work closely with Xero’s other global government relations leaders to identify trends.
- **Team**
- Reporting to the General Manager of GRPP, you will become a member of Xero’s Policy, Risk and Compliance team under the Legal Team umbrella. You will also have a ‘dotted line’ relationship with the ANZ Managing Director.
- You will be a senior leader with autonomy and decision making power to reflect your seniority. You will have the privilege of learning from the experience of high performing regional engagement and policy specialists, and will be constantly challenged to redefine and execute best practice government relations.
- Contribute to the development and implementation of robust metrics to assess the impact of government relations activities on business outcomes and policy decisions, with a specific focus on the effectiveness of tax and technology policy engagement.

**What you'll bring with you**:
- Australian experience in public policy development with government (political or departmental level), a regulator, industry organisation or private and community sectors
- Australian experience progressing ideally ideally in the technology policy or tax policy through Parliament, demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of gaining industry or electoral support, coalition building, navigating Parliamentary processes and pressure points, in particular cross-bench and Senate dynamics
- Demonstrated public sector or political leadership with a strong ability to drive cohesion, focus and outcomes across a divers