Head of Commercial

We have partnered with a well-established, publicly funded Australian institution that attracts significant visitor numbers both on-site and through digital channels. The organisation operates a multi-stream commercial portfolio spanning retail, venue hire, tourism, and ticketed experiences, and is backed by long-term structural funding. The commercial function is being consolidated and elevated, and this role leads that work.

This is a genuinely broad commercial remit, and the breadth is the point. What does not yet exist is an integrated commercial strategy that treats retail, venue hire, tourism, and ticketed experiences as a single portfolio rather than separate functions. That is what this role builds. The analytics infrastructure is in place, a capable marketing team is alongside you, and the senior leader you report to has a strong commercial background and gives direct reports the space to operate. The team has been through significant change and needs stable, credible leadership before it needs a new strategy.

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  Build and own an integrated commercial model across retail, venue hire, tourism, and ticketed experiences, treating them as a single revenue portfolio with shared levers

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  Develop pricing, channel, and audience strategies that grow predictable baseline revenue alongside peak periods

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  Lead the tourism and venue partnerships function, including relationships with tourism bodies, government stakeholders, and corporate clients

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  Work with the marketing team to develop audience acquisition, retention, and lifetime value strategies across domestic and international segments

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  Manage a multidisciplinary team across buying, retail operations, business development, and venue services, with stability and performance culture as the immediate priority

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  Own revenue reporting and forecasting, moving the business from activity-based reporting to a driver-based model that connects audience behaviour to commercial outcomes

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  Represent the organisation externally at industry forums, government briefings, and partner events at a senior level

• A track record of building and optimising multi-stream revenue across both B2B and B2C channels, from hospitality, tourism, visitor economy, retail, or a comparable environment

• Genuine financial fluency: comfortable building a forecast from first principles and holding a P&L conversation with confidence

• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams through periods of change, with the EQ to settle a team before pushing for performance

• The ability to operate credibly in senior external environments, including government and industry stakeholders, without needing to be managed into those rooms

• Commercial instincts backed by analytical rigour, not instinct alone

• Comfort with organisational complexity, including partnership relationships that span philanthropic, program-based, and purely commercial categories

This role is for you if:

• You are energised by a portfolio commercial role where no two revenue streams behave the same way

• You lead people with high EQ first and performance expectations second, and you know the order matters

• You are as comfortable in a senior external meeting as you are in a weekly trading review

• You want genuine scope to build something, backed by an organisation with the resources and appetite to do it properly

• You have operated in environments where relationships are as important as data, and you have learned to work both

This role is not for you if:

• You want to walk in with a transformation plan on day one

• You measure your contribution by strategy outputs rather than commercial outcomes

• You prefer a clean, well-defined organisational structure

• You are looking for a role where the commercial fundamentals are already settled

• A senior leader who thinks commercially, provides clear direction, and has already invested in the tools, technology, and team capability you need to execute

• Genuine scope to design the commercial model from the ground up, with institutional backing to make it real

• A senior external profile that puts you in front of tourism bodies, government, and corporate partners from the outset

• A role with real consequence: the revenue this function generates directly funds the organisation's public-facing activity and long-term investment capacity

• A location that offers genuine lifestyle upside, particularly for candidates considering a move from a major city

Total package circa $165k to $185k depending on experience.