Address Xero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive.
At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.
How you’ll make an impact...
As Xero’s APAC Government Experience (GX) Manager you will have a significant impact by influencing the government to deliver favourable public policy outcomes for Xero, our partners and our customers. You will be responsible for managing the state and federal policy process in Australia, and will support the APAC Head of GX with surge capacity across APAC as required.
You will be a highly valued member of a number of internal Xero teams. You will be a member of the: APAC GX team, global GX team, legal team and wider Xero team. These teams are high performing yet supportive, and you will be challenged to continually redefine best practice. Valuing the power of teamwork underpins Xero’s success. You will develop a broad network of internal and external stakeholders to inform your understanding and intuition of public sector issues in Australia. Your external network will be derived from: industry groups, spanning technology, accounting software and fintech stakeholders; government relationships, including relevant policy officer and regulator relationships; and others.
Crucially, your internal stakeholders will be formed from members of Xero's legal, communications, marketing, partnerships and product compliance teams. Your strategic stakeholder management prowess will provide you the building blocks for success. In collaboration with internal stakeholders, the APAC Head of GX and the GM of GX, you will contribute to the development of an APAC government plan. It will be your responsibility to identify, present and prioritise issues in Australia before designing a plan to manage these issues.
You will be challenged to be ambitious and creative to affect meaningful policy outcomes. After prioritising issues and developing influencing tactics, you will execute on the plan. You will deploy a variety of stakeholder engagement tactics, nimbly iterating as required, to positively influence prioritised issues. You will participate in a variety of industry group forums to inform industry positioning on issue areas. You will also engage directly with key government stakeholders, equipped with external and internal research, and accompanied by senior leaders and/or internal subject matter experts as required.
You will benefit from and build upon Xero’s positive reputation within government to deliver meaningful outcomes as per the government strategy. You will form part of a high performing team. Your success will be measured by the execution of the APAC government plan, and favourable, Xero-instigated policy outcomes within prioritised issue areas.
What you will bring...
Always first, second and third, you’ll be a kind, empathetic human being who cares about others, has a bias for action and is an outstanding communicator across all mediums.
You will bring public sector experience with a strong ability to drive cohesion, focus and outcomes across a diverse array of stakeholders.
It’s essential you have experience in public policy, which includes having an understanding of policy processes and how to navigate them to successfully exert influence. This experience could be from within government as a political or departmental policymaker, a regulator as a policy implementer or as a policy shaper/advocate from private sector, industry organisation or community sector. At a minimum you will have a deep understanding of each of these perspectives.
Preferably your public policy professional experience will also mean you’ll bring the skills developed from a period of work in areas of topical alignment to Xero’s strategic public policy concerns, namely small business policy, digital and digitalisation policy, data policy (including consumer directed data portability), innovation and fintech policy, taxation policy and broader economic/finance policies.
You’ll be a diplomat who is aware of the need for alignment and internal stakeholder involvement and collaboration as a critical component in policy formation in the modern corporate environment, both internally and externally to the organisation.
What you’ll do...
You lead in an aligned and collaborative way - you will need to lead multiple projects that entail working collaboratively and transparently with multiple Xero business units, in particular the legal, communications, partnerships and product compliance teams, to ensure unwavering business alignment. Building on all of the above, you’ll be an evangelist for beautiful technology and small business public policy, within the Legal team (in which we sit), within Xero, within our sector and more widely.
You will develop and maintain a sophisticated approach to the identification, segmentation and prioritisation of the major public policies impacting small businesses and Xero in Australia, including supporting the GM to report on public policy intelligence, trends and insights to senior management.
You will support and enable Xero’s policy decision making by contributing to processes on issues impacting Xero and our customers. You will identify opportunities for cutting edge industry partnerships with think tanks and small business advocates - you will be plugged into the key public policy thought leadership networks, trends, dialogues and other forums and form strong connections with relevant public policy partners and, in coordination with our communications colleagues.
You will drive data and technology into our engagement and measure our impact - we are a government relations function for the digital world, and whether it is data backed decision making or simply joining the dots on learnings from meetings with different parts of government, the Xero GX team is seeking to drive technology deep into our operations and to closely measure our impact.
Submission coordination - you will be comfortable creating impactful submissions and work towards the coordination of a consistent approach to submissions and consultations across Xero.
All the data - you will work closely with Xero’s internal data analysis and communication teams to propose and deliver projects of strategic importance to the public policy debate.
Where you’ll fit in...
You may be based anywhere in Australia, ideally in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne or Brisbane. You will likely be required to travel domestically, but demands will not be excessive. You will work hand in hand with the APAC Head of GX and report to the GM of GX.
The behaviors you will embody...
A positive values-based practitioner committed to adding to the unique Xero culture.
A trusted advisor and “translator” role on government-facing issues with peers and leaders.
A culture of continuous improvement in all that we do is in place and thriving.
Trusted stakeholder status with government allowing early stage consultation opportunities and ever deeper connection.
Trusted by diverse stakeholders to be constructive, no matter what Leveraging in-region Xeros to extract maximum in-region influence.
The Skills You Will Bring...
Strong leadership and skills
An in-depth understanding of public policy formation from multiple perspectives
Strategic delivery and commercial acumen
Very strong interpersonal skills
A high ability to operate in a fast paced environment with constant change
A problem solving mentality
Ability to take a proactive and creative approach to managing and solving issues impacting government policy and engagement strategies
A mindset for change and new ways of working
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
The ability to develop trusted relationships with key stakeholders and to play a leadership role driving forward our agenda with industry bodies
The ability to operate seamlessly between the hybrid virtual and non virtual world of 2023 and beyond
Competencies...
Experience in public policy in government (political or departmental level), a regulator, industry organisation or the private and community sectors or a mix of these in a role focused on public policy formation and navigating complex policy processes.
Highly tuned policy development and research skills with a record of their successful deployment in potentially contested environments
A familiarity with the key relevant policy agencies
Ideally a degree in a relevant field, such as Politics, Law, Economics, Public Policy, Government/Public Administration, Social Sciences and Research Listed company experience preferable
Why Xero?
Offering very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, health insurance, life insurance, and income protection, wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, career development, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.
Our collaborative and inclusive culture is one we’re immensely proud of. We know that a diverse workforce is a strength that enables businesses, including ours, to better understand and serve customers, attract top talent and innovate successfully. We are a member of Pride in Diversity, in recognition of our inclusive workplace. Our goal is to make sure you feel welcome and supported to do the best work of your life.
At Xero we embrace diversity and inclusion and value a #challenge mindset. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single competency or experience . If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be just the right person for this role and Xero. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at time of application and throughout the interview process.
