The Australian National Maritime Museum is seeking an ongoing Head of First Nations Programs to provide strategic leadership, cultural authority and direction for First Nations engagement across the Museum.
About the Australian National Maritime Museum
As one of Sydney’s most visited museums, the Australian National Maritime Museum (the Museum), or the https://Sea.Museum as it’s more colloquially known, is one of the world’s leading maritime museums.
The Museum shares our national maritime story across Australia and the world, online, onsite, and through research, presentations, and travelling exhibitions. We offer must-visit museum experiences that delight and inspire.
We connect our visitors with the oceans and waterways as the heartbeat of who we are. From deep time to modern Australia and beyond, we explore our past, our present, and future as an island nation shaped by sea, offering a sustainable and cohesive vision for the future.
The Museum welcomes over 2.5 million local, interstate, and international visitors annually, and is supported by a thriving and passionate staff, membership, volunteer, and education base. The Museum has a charitable foundation that receives donations.
The key duties of the position include:
About the Role
This is a rare and exciting opportunity to shape how First Nations voices, knowledges and lived experiences are represented within one of Australia’s leading national cultural institutions.
As the Head of First Nations Programs, you will play a pivotal leadership role, providing cultural authority and strategic direction across the Museum. This is more than a program role it is an opportunity to influence how stories are told, how the organisation engages with communities, and how First Nations perspectives are embedded at every level of the Museum’s work.
You will work alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, Elders, artists, and knowledge holders to build trusted, enduring relationships that sit at the heart of the Museum’s practice. Your leadership will ensure that engagement is meaningful, respectful, and grounded in cultural integrity, creating spaces for connection, truth telling and shared understanding.
Leading the Museum’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), you will drive organisation-wide change influencing senior leaders and teams to strengthen capability, embed cultural perspectives and deliver outcomes that have genuine and lasting impact. Your work will directly shape how the Museum evolves as a place of inclusion, learning, and cultural leadership.
You will guide the delivery of high-impact programs, exhibitions, and initiatives, ensuring they are strategically aligned, well governed and culturally informed. In doing so, you will balance community expectations, organisational priorities, and reputational considerations, while ensuring the integrity of First Nations representation remains central.
This is a unique opportunity to step into a role of influence and purpose to lead meaningful change, amplify community voices and leave a legacy in how First Nations cultures, histories and futures are represented and celebrated.
Important information
This is an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander identified position, available only to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people under section 8(1) of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
Selection Criteria
The successful candidate will demonstrate their capacity against the following:
- Cultural Leadership and Authority – Demonstrated cultural authority and deep understanding of First Nations perspectives, with the ability to lead and embed respectful, authentic representation and engagement across programs, collections, exhibitions and organisational practice.
- Strategic Program Leadership and Delivery – Proven ability to lead the design and delivery of complex, high-impact cultural programs and initiatives, including Reconciliation Action Plans, achieving outcomes within agreed timeframes, governance frameworks and resource constraints.
- Stakeholder Engagement and Influence – Exceptional ability to build and sustain trusted relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, Elders, artists, and stakeholders, and to influence outcomes across a diverse and complex stakeholder environment.
- Governance, Risk and Cultural Protocols – Demonstrated expertise in managing cultural, intellectual property, and compliance obligations, ensuring alignment with legislation, policy, and cultural protocols in the management of Indigenous collections, programs and knowledge.
- Executive Communication and Organisational Impact – Highly developed communication, analytical and advisory skills, including the ability to provide strategic advice, develop high-quality documentation, and influence decision-making at senior levels to achieve organisational outcomes.
Eligibility
This position is open to all eligible members of the community, and we encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with a disability and people from every cultural and linguistic background. To be an eligible member of the community, you must be an Australian citizen.
All employees will be required to satisfactorily complete an Australian Federal Police National Police Check and obtain and maintain a Working with Children Check registration.
Notes
No Applications will be accepted by mail or email.
When applying via our online e-recruitment system, please provide a written application addressing each Selection Criteria. Your current resume is also to be included in your application.
In addition to an application and your resume, the assessment process for this position may also include an interview and referee reports.
Selection for this position will be made on the basis of relative merit which will be assessed against each item of the selection criteria. Applications that do not address the selection criteria will not be considered for shortlisting by the Selection Panel. As part of the selection process the Selection Panel may invite candidates to undertake online testing, skills-based assessment and provide samples of written work at interview.