Legal Operations Manager

For almost 70 years, Export Finance Australia has helped Australian businesses grow and succeed internationally with finance to secure opportunities, expand into new markets and diversify their presence. We support critical minerals and defence sectors, finance projects that strengthen economic resilience and advance net zero, and back Australian investment in sustainable infrastructure. 

Working with banks, other Government agencies and international partners, we back Australia’s exporters, supply chain businesses and industries, contributing to a more stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific while advancing Australia’s trade, investment and economic security objectives.  

The Legal Operations Manager is a newly created role responsible for establishing and embedding best-practice legal operations capability within EFA’s Legal function. The role supports all Legal practice areas, including Enterprise, Transactions, and Governance & Board Secretariat, by providing consistent systems, reporting and operational frameworks across the Legal function. The role will design, implement and manage systems, processes and reporting frameworks that enable the Legal team to operate efficiently, meet statutory and accountability obligations as a corporate Commonwealth entity, including reporting and record-keeping requirements.

The position will work closely with Procurement, IT, Risk & Compliance, and Finance to ensure that legal workflows, contract lifecycle management, reporting obligations and governance frameworks are integrated, technology-enabled and fit for purpose.

Your new role

Location: Sydney
Role Type: Full-time, Permanent

About you

Legal Systems and Technology

• Assess the current Legal Work Request (matter intake) system and lead the procurement and implementation of a replacement system to improve visibility, triaging, prioritisation and reporting of legal matters.
• Lead the replacement of EFA’s contract management system (CMS)
• Assess and implement an appropriate electronic document and records management solution for Legal.
• Support the Procurement team to ensure systems support accurate and timely reporting for AusTender and Senate Order for Entity Contracts (Murray Motion) requirements.
• Work with IT to ensure systems are secure, compliant with information governance obligations and aligned with EFA’s broader technology architecture.

Contract Governance and Commonwealth Compliance

• Design and implement controls to ensure compliance with the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPRs) and other relevant legislative obligations.
• Establish processes to support:
  • accurate and complete contract reporting to AusTender,
  • preparation and validation of Senate Order for Entity Contracts (Murray Motion) reports.
• Establish and maintain a structured process for monitoring regulatory and legislative updates relevant to EFA’s operations, ensuring timely escalation to the relevant Deputy General Counsel or the General Counsel and tracking of implementation actions.

Legal Process Optimisation

• Design, document and continuously improve core Legal processes.
• Develop, maintain and periodically review Legal Procedures, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and process maps for key activities, including matter intake and triage, contract review and registration, FOI tracking, and external legal engagement.
• Identify process inefficiencies or control gaps and implement practical improvements to strengthen compliance and reduce operational risk.
• Maintain oversight of policies owned or coordinated by Legal, including managing review cycles, version control, and approval workflows.

Data, Metrics and Reporting

• Develop and maintain Legal performance metrics and dashboards.
• Provide reporting and insights across all Legal portfolios to the General Counsel, Deputy General Counsels, Executive and Board committees as required.

External Counsel and Spend Management

• Support the management of external legal panel arrangements.

Change Management and Capability Building

• Lead change management initiatives associated with new systems and process reforms.
• Deliver training and guidance to Legal and business stakeholders on new systems, reporting requirements and governance processes.
• Establish foundational Legal Operations capability, including documentation standards, knowledge management systems (including precedents and playbooks) and reporting frameworks.

Experience & Skills

• 5+ years within a legal operations, process improvement environment
• Demonstrated experience in legal operations, contract management, procurement governance or a similar operational role within a complex organisation.
• Experience implementing or replacing:
  • matter management systems,
  • contract lifecycle management systems, and/or
  • electronic document and records management systems.
• Strong understanding of governance and compliance frameworks, ideally within the public sector or a regulated environment.
• Experience developing reporting frameworks, dashboards and performance metrics.
  Strong project management and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving capability.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives and deliver system and process transformation.

Desirable

• Experience within a Commonwealth entity and familiarity with Commonwealth Procurement Rules and Senate Order reporting requirements.
• Experience supporting AusTender reporting processes.

Even if you haven’t ticked every box but this role resonates with you, don't rule yourself out just yet, we'd love to hear from you!

Our benefits and culture

We are small enough to have an impact, BIG enough to make a world of difference and it starts with our people.

We support flexible working and pride ourselves in fostering a culture that is inclusive, diverse and collaborative. We are proud to be certified as a 2025 Great Place to Work for a fifth consecutive year, recognised on the 2023 AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list and listed as one of Australia’s Best Workplaces for Women in 2025. 

In line with our commitment to our people, we have a comprehensive array of benefits available to our employees:

• Generous leave provisions (e.g. Annual Wellbeing day) and leave purchase opportunities
• 18 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers
• Thorough induction onboarding program
• Fitness Passport along with other Health & Wellbeing initiatives
• Gender affirmation leave
• Income Protection Insurance
• Community volunteering
• and many more!

Our headquarters is based in Sydney CBD, and we have a national presence across Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Eligibility

Australian Citizenship - To be eligible to apply for this position, applicants must hold Australian Citizenship at the time of application.

Security Clearance - To be eligible to apply for this position, applicants must be able to obtain and maintain a Baseline security clearance.

How to apply

Applications close: 31 May 2026.  

Enquiries: Careers@exportfinance.gov.au      
  
To apply, please email your CV to Careers@exportfinance.gov.au      

By choosing to apply, you agree to the recruitment privacy policy.

We invite and welcome applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from diverse cultural backgrounds, people with disability and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

If you are a candidate with a disability, let us know how we can provide you with additional support.

About us

Export Finance Australia is Australia’s export credit agency.  

We provide finance to support Australian export trade and overseas infrastructure development across the Pacific and Indo-Pacific. Through our loans, bonds and guarantees, we support businesses – from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large corporates – foreign governments and infrastructure projects, to take on the world. 

Working with banks, other government agencies and our partners, together we are helping drive international success for Australian businesses.

The reason our people join us, stay with us and grow with us is because they wholeheartedly believe in our purpose. They can see the impact we create for our customers.

We are a highly purpose-driven organisation. We seek to create an inclusive culture that values our customers and employees. Our people are expected to champion this and play a key role in achieving those outcomes. In working towards our strategy, our people display our IMPACT leadership behaviours of Frank & Fearless, Dexterous & Agile and Careful & Diligent

For more information about us, please refer to our website. 

Applications from recruitment agencies will not be considered on this occasion.