The Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District leads day-to-day operations across nine hospitals and a wide range of community, mental health, population health, clinical and support services. Reporting to the Chief Executive, the role is the senior source of advice on operational and organisational performance across services for about 930,000 residents. View the official job ad before preparing the executive application.
Two targeted questions inside a brief cover letter shape how to apply for Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. One asks for a significant performance uplift across a large health organisation, and the other tests influence across organisational boundaries.
The panel needs executive examples with scale, barriers and sustainable results. Explain the performance problem, the leaders and services involved, how you created cooperation and the measures that showed the improvement held.
Your application checklist
- Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District role snapshot
- Application requirements for Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District
- Evidence to include in your Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District application
- How to structure the cover letter and target-question responses
Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District role snapshot
| Role title | Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District |
|---|---|
| Organisation | South Eastern Sydney Local Health District |
| Location | Flexible across Sydney CBD, Randwick, Kogarah and Caringbah, with regular presence across District locations |
| Job reference | REQ687998 |
| Classification | Health Service Senior Executive Band 2 |
| Work type | Ongoing full-time |
| Remuneration package | $337,767 to $376,309 per annum |
| Closing date | 11:59pm, 21 September 2026 |
| Official job ad | View role 596528 |
Application requirements for Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District
The two questions define the evidence the panel wants first. Build the cover letter around them and use the resume to substantiate the scale of the roles, services and financial responsibilities you describe.
- Up-to-date resume
- Brief cover letter containing short responses to 2 target questions, maximum 2 pages
Use the exact question wording as headings. Keep organisational background concise and spend the available space on your decisions, influence and results.
Essential role requirements
The role requires tertiary qualifications in a related field or extensive proven senior-management experience in a substantial and complex organisation engaged in clinical service delivery. Applicants must also be Australian citizens, permanent residents, New Zealand citizens or hold a valid visa with permission to work in Australia.
Evidence to include in your Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District application
The role needs an executive who can hold a District-wide view while strengthening accountability among local service leaders. Candidate evidence should cover operational performance, financial stewardship, leadership development and influence across the health system.
| What the role needs | How to show it |
|---|---|
| Large-scale clinical operations leadership | Show the hospitals, services or functions in your remit and how you maintained safe, efficient delivery across that complexity. |
| Development of senior managers | Describe how you strengthened leadership capability and accountability while preserving appropriate local decision-making. |
| Financial and operational stewardship | Give evidence of managing a financial position through service planning, performance oversight or corrective action. |
| Influence and negotiation | Use an outcome that depended on stakeholders inside and outside your organisation and explain how you built cooperation. |
How to structure the cover letter and target-question responses
The application requires a resume and a brief cover letter containing both targeted responses. The cover letter can be up to two pages. The table below shows how to organise the executive evidence around the exact questions.
| Cover letter section | What to include |
|---|---|
| Opening paragraph | State your executive health-operations scope and the relevance of your experience to a multi-service Local Health District. |
| Describe a role in which you led a significant performance uplift across a large health organisation, and outline how you built co-operation and overcame barriers to achieve sustainable results | Set out the baseline performance problem, the organisational scale, the barriers, your leadership actions and the measures that proved the improvement was sustained. |
| Provide an example of where achieving results was heavily reliant on you influencing people in other organisations to deliver these results. How did you go about achieving this? What impact did it have? | Explain the shared outcome, each organisation’s interests, the influence strategy you used and the operational or community impact achieved. |
| Closing paragraph | Connect your examples with SESLHD’s need for strong District operations, capable senior managers and excellent service provision. |
What strong health-operations evidence looks like
- Executive responsibility across substantial clinical services
- Performance measures that establish the starting point and result
- Visible action to remove organisational barriers
- Influence across executive, clinical and external stakeholders
- Changes that continued after the immediate intervention
Help with your Executive Director, Operations – South Eastern Sydney Local Health District application
Read the official Executive Director, Operations vacancy and role description before drafting. Team 3Thirty’s NSW cover letter template can help allocate the two pages, and professional application support is available for help selecting executive examples with enough organisational scale and measurable impact.