Senior Contracts Manager | Wellington City

Job Description

Senior Contracts Manager

Role type: Permanent, full-time

Location: Wellington City

Salary band & range: General Salary Range C: $119,376 to $160,026 depending on skills and experience

About the Role - Kōrero mō te Tūranga

This newly established role sits within the Planning & Capability team in the Policy & Trade business unit. Working at the centre of Policy & Trade's procurement and commercial management activity, you'll lead contracts that are strategically important to the delivery of key objectives.

You'll ensure commercial arrangements deliver value, performance, and alignment with organisational goals. As a trusted adviser, you will influence outcomes, build commercial capability and drive continuous improvement in a highly collaborative work group.

Key responsibilities include:

• leading negotiations and developing structured strategies for agreed contracts
• reviewing legacy agreements and conducting gap analysis to identify risks and improvements
• mentoring and supporting others, including providing oversight and peer review for consistency
• engaging suppliers to align expectations and strengthen delivery outcomes
• creating work plans, performance measures, and risk mitigation strategies
• providing commercial advice to contract owners and monitoring contract outcomes
• navigating MPI processes and technical environments to support effective delivery
• facilitating regular meetings with suppliers and contract owners to track performance and expenditure.

About You - Mōu

We are looking for someone who brings contract management expertise, a strong commercial lens, passion for driving contract performance and value. Your stakeholder engagement capability enables you to navigate complexity, negotiate agreements, manage supplier relationships, and provide expert advice that influences key decisions.

You're adept at building relationships at all levels, internally and externally, with resilience and advanced communication skills. You ask thoughtful questions, challenge constructively, and bring people onside in complex or resistant environments. You'll play a key role in advising colleagues, promoting best practice, and contributing to a culture of excellence.

You will also bring:

• a relevant tertiary qualification or professional certification (e.g., MCIPS, WorldCC)
• proven experience managing a broad range of strategically significant contracts
• expertise in negotiating agreements, pricing models, and performance frameworks
• strong commercial and financial literacy with analytical capability
• a strategic mindset and the ability to influence across Policy & Trade
• experience mentoring and coaching others to build capability.

You do not need to meet all of the role requirements to apply. We offer a breadth of development and learning opportunities and will welcome an application if you think you could make a great fit.

About the Team - Mō tō mātou Rōpū

We're a small, collaborative team based in Wellington with broad-ranging skills and experience. We are agile in our approach and enjoy a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement, while supporting each other.

Our support to strategic planning, performance reporting and governance enables business unit success. To enable deliberate investment in our people, grow capability and build excellence, we provide thought leadership, design and delivery of strategic initiatives, tools, guidance and training.

About MPI - Mō te Manatū Ahu Matua

We are passionate about growing prosperity in New Zealand's primary sectors while ensuring respect for Kaitiaki – guardianship of our natural resources. 

Benefits of working at MPI - Ngā hua o te mahi i te Manatū Ahu Matua

• Additional MPI leave days
• Ability to purchase extra annual leave
• Bi-annual paid eye test and contribution to the costs of corrective lenses/frames 

https://www.mpi.govt.nz/about-mpi/careers/working-mpi/benefits/

Credit check - Tirotiro nama

Please note, given this position is identified as carrying financial risk, the preferred candidate(s) will be required to satisfactorily pass a credit check.

Are you ready to make a difference? - Kua rite koe mō tēnei mahi whaitake?
We are committed to being a good partner under Te Tiriti o Waitangi which includes working closely with iwi, hapū, whānau and hāpori.

We aspire to reflect the diverse communities we serve, so we welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, and identities. As an organisation, we are committed to making Manatū Ahu Matua Ministry for Primary Industries a great place to work for all.

In your cover letter we'd like to know about you, your values; your interest and motivations for this role; the abilities, strengths, personal attributes, and diverse perspectives you will bring to the role and this organisation, which may have also been gained outside of the workforce.

To view the position description and/or apply online, please click “APPLY” or visit the MPI Careers Site. To apply, you must hold the right to work in New Zealand or be eligible to obtain it – click here to find out more about work visa eligibility and options.

Applications close at 11.59pm on Wednesday 18^th March 2026

If you have any questions about the role, please email george.mitrakas@mpi.govt.nz 

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