About Surfing NSW

Founded in 1963, Surfing NSW is the peak body for surfing in New South Wales, covering all disciplines of the sport. We play a pivotal role in driving participation, supporting our boardriding clubs and their members to foster fun, safe and inclusive environments for all surfers, as well as provide a high-quality development pathway for aspiring surfers in the state.

The organisation boasts a dynamic network of over 130 clubs, 15,000 members, more than 50 surf schools and coaches, delivering hundreds of thousands of lessons each year. In addition, more than 750K surfers that routinely make waves every day across the state’s magnificent coastline.

Beyond fostering sport participation, Surfing NSW is committed to enhancing community wellbeing through its extensive educational programs. These include lifesaving first response training, aquatic trauma treatment, therapeutic surfing programs, and ocean career development, ensuring a holistic approach to the development of the sport and its participants.

Role Overview

The State Manager - Clubs, Participation & Pathways spearheads the Surfing NSW sport strategy across New South Wales, with a strong focus on supporting boardriding clubs thrive, driving participation, innovation and overseeing owned and 3rd party events.

Supported by a small but dedicated team, you will create and lead best-in-class service to our community of 133 clubs across the state, understanding our network's challenges and identifying opportunities to uplift capability, improve standards, set a new benchmark for volunteer support, and drive key participation segments to grow the grassroots surfing community.

In addition, working closely with the high-performance Director you will shape and build a world-class development pathway for aspiring surfers in Australia’s largest surf state, leading the implementation of regional and state pathway events, teams competitions, camps and programs to provide more opportunities for NSW surfers to progress to professional and Olympic high-performance pathways. This is a leadership role which presents an opportunity to make your mark on a sport that is in a rapid growth phase, spurred by record interest and opportunity.

Key Responsibilities:

• Club Development: Lead the strategic implementation of Surfing NSW organisational transformation to a modern, service-oriented state sporting organisation that focuses on its community boardriding clubs at its core. Manage the in-field team servicing our 132 clubs with governance, operational, programmatic and events support at beach, in region, throughout the year. Develop and maintain a strong presence in the region and foster productive relationships with the boardriding club community, all disciplines.
• Program and Initiative Design: In your role of leading the development of clubs and pathways, this role will have a focus on ideating new and effective ways to support the network.
• Drive key segments: Drive uplift in identified key participation segments across our network, in structured and unstructured environments, such as women and girls.
• Event Pathway: Design and lead the implementation of the annual regional and state pathway events calendar in conjunction with our high-performance Director, regional delegates and Surfing Australia; providing more opportunities for aspiring surfers to compete locally as well as raising the standard of our marquee national rankings events across the state. Effectively partner with third-party providers, Surfing Australia, local and state government and brand partners to deliver a practical and well-coordinated calendar, driving more, performance-oriented and high-quality events for the New South Wales surfing community.
• Technology: Lead Surfing NSW technology ecosystem integration, utilising the available technology to help provide timely and effective support to our boardriding clubs, members, surf schools and broader surfing community. Implement discipline within the team to input and utilise the system; ultimately using the data to provide timely insights to our members to grow and commercialise our sport.
• Team Collaboration: Work closely with the Surfing NSW CEO, leadership team and staff, contractors, and volunteers and actively demonstrate a team-first attitude and behaviours to advance the strategic priorities of Surfing NSW.

Key Attributes:

• Understanding of volunteer capacities and environments of sporting clubs
• Team management experience
• Experience implementing change
• Experience developing and implementing strategies to address business needs
• Ability to work independently and manage multiple projects concurrently, and consistently to deliver to deadlines.
• Attention to detail and compliance with policy, regulations etc.
• Ability to perform in an ever-changing, fast paced environment whilst marinating quality output
• An appreciation of the sporting landscape, surf culture, how best to engage with athletes and the wider sports community an advantage
• Highly developed interpersonal and presentation skills
• A team player with an ability to work collaboratively and muck in when needed
• A strong understanding of event economics, including budgeting, revenue generation, and cost control, ensuring all Surfing NSW events meet or exceed financial objectives.
• Ability to identify and leverage commercialisation opportunities within pathway programs.
• Strong stakeholder management skills; particularly within federated sport and local government.
• The successful applicant must have a valid working with children check (employee)

Key Relationships

• Boardriding Club Presidents & Volunteers
• Regional Delegates
• Surfing NSW Technical Director - High Performance & Talent Development
• Surfing Australia

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer - Surfing NSW

Direct Reports: 3

• Development Lead - North
• Development Lead - Central / South
• Pathway & Events Lead

Working for Surfing NSW

Join Surfing NSW and contribute to a mission-driven organisation where your work directly impacts the grassroots surfing community. Enjoy a competitive benefits package, flexible work arrangements and a beachfront office. This role offers the opportunity to shape and grow within a dynamic non-profit setting and refine the way Surfing NSW connects with its community.