Head: Dean's office and strategic projects

Job Title: Head - Dean's Office and Strategic Projects

Location: Parktown, South Africa - Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand

Grade: AD07, Permanent

The Faculty of Health Sciences seeks a dynamic professional to lead the Dean's Office, enabling high performance, responsive, and strategically aligned operations. The role acts as a key interface between faculty leadership, institutional priorities, and operational execution.

• Provide oversight of administrative and operational functions of the Dean's Office, ensuring alignment with faculty priorities and enabling effective executive decision making.
• Manage governance processes, including agenda setting, documentation, and tracking of decisions and actions.
• Oversee workflow management, ensuring clarity of roles, prioritisation, and alignment of activities to strategic priorities.
• Ensure quality assurance across reports, briefings, and submissions to support effective decision making.
• Identify operational risks, inefficiencies, and bottlenecks, implement proactive solutions to enhance responsiveness and performance.
• Drive continuous improvement of systems, processes, and ways of working to strengthen the effectiveness of the Dean's Office.
• Support and represent the Dean in engagements with internal and external stakeholders, ensuring alignment of messaging, priorities, and follow through.
• Act as central coordination point between the Dean's Office and faculty stakeholders.
• Lead the development of high level reports, submissions, and briefing documents to inform and support strategic decision making.
• Oversee institutional agreements, ensuring compliance and alignment with faculty and institutional strategic objectives.
• Facilitate cross functional collaboration across academic, research, and administrative units.
• Identify and progress strategic partnership and funding opportunities.
• Identify, scope, and drive strategic projects aligned to faculty priorities, in consultation with faculty leadership.
• Translate strategic objectives into structured initiatives with clear deliverables and timelines.
• Oversee implementation of key faculty initiatives and monitor progress against milestones.
• Manage project risks, dependencies, and resource allocation effectively.
• Provide direction to project teams, ensuring accountability, coordination, and delivery.
• Continuously enhance project frameworks, tools, and delivery methodologies.

• Degree in an appropriate discipline.
• Minimum of 8 years relevant work experience.
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and deliver results.
• Strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to build and maintain stakeholder relationships.
• Strong analytical, planning, and organisational skills.
• Ability to work under pressure and manage competing priorities.
• High levels of initiative, accountability, and professionalism.

• Honours or Master's degree in an appropriate discipline.
• Experience within a tertiary or higher education environment.
• Advanced stakeholder engagement and influencing capability.
• Strong leadership and independent decision making ability.
• High level of emotional intelligence and organisational awareness.

The University is committed to equal employment opportunity. Preference may be given to applicants from the designated South African groups in accordance with the University's employment equity plans. The University reserves the right not to make an appointment or to re advertise.