Programme Manager

Kia ora!

Air New Zealand is on an accelerated journey to deliver the best flying experience on Earth. Our purpose is to enrich our country by connecting New Zealanders to each other and New Zealand to the world. As part of our brand promise, we embrace Manaaki – taking care further than any other airline and creating meaningful experiences that empower and connect.   

Your Impact Starts Here

To help lead the way, we’re looking for a permanent Programme Manager (internally known as a Delivery Enablement Specialist) to join our Delivery Enablement team. You’ll be right in the mix of our most critical cross-functional initiatives, helping set direction, build momentum and create the conditions for delivery success. This isn’t a role for spectators. It’s for someone who wants to get stuck in, lead with clarity and make things happen.  

We’re looking for a T-shaped professional with deep delivery expertise, change management experience, and a proven ability to lead and land outcomes at scale. You’ll bring experience working across large, complex programmes - someone who has delivered in fast-moving enterprise environments. You’ll take a hands-on, “roll your sleeves up” approach to delivery, guiding teams through complexity, breaking down work and working with stakeholders to make sure outcomes are achieved, issues are unblocked, and progress sticks. You won’t just set the plan – you’ll help bring it to life.   

You will champion and leverage our agile operating rhythm to deliver outcomes via large-scale cross-functional initiatives. This will require you to manage complex dependencies between teams, third parties, and across the organisation to ensure end-to-end delivery success.    

Key Roles and Responsibilities:   

• Drive delivery planning, value decomposition, and forecasting for a complex programme or initiative. By being an expert problem solver you will unblock constraints, leveraging the Air NZ enterprise agile delivery model to drive the outcomes.  

• Relentlessly manage the critical path, risks and issues, unblocking end to end delivery where required. 

• Work closely with initiative sponsors and leaders to ensure change adoption is embedded and well-supported. 

• Manage diverse external stakeholders and vendors across locations, time zones, and delivery methods. 

• Develop and maintain effective relationships with key internal stakeholders to ensure business outcomes and expectations are met.  

• Guide teams in optimising flow, sequencing and governance.  

• Monitor and analyse teams’ throughput, identifying opportunities to improve delivery accuracy and efficiency. 

• Actively ensure the safety and security of all people, assets, systems & procedures in your area of responsibility. 

Experience & Skills:   

• Proven experience in agile programme, portfolio, or product delivery (scaled or multi-squad environments). 

• Deep understanding of delivery methods (agile, hybrid, and traditional) and when to flex them. 

• 10 years’ experience leading and delivering large-scale technology and business outcomes in a corporate environment.  

• Thinks critically to assess uncertainty and find clear solutions to complex situations. 

• Strong facilitation, influencing and engagement skills that enable you to work with diverse stakeholder groups while managing expectations.  

• Active listener and clear communicator, enabling effective technical discussions to closure.  

• Experience in aviation, transport, logistics, or operations a plus.   

• Confidence engaging with sponsors, finance partners, and vendors — with a focus on value, risk and change. 

• A collaborative, growth-oriented mindset and ability to coach, mediate and guide without needing to control. 

Why this role?  

This is a rare opportunity to help shape how Air New Zealand delivers its most complex work in a way that’s practical, purposeful and people-first. You’ll join a passionate team focused on continuous improvement, delivery momentum and real-world outcomes. If you love making things happen and want to be part of something meaningful, we’d love to hear from you.  

This role closes Sunday 10 August at 11:59pm.