Head of Marketing, Communications & Solutions

This role is based in Shanghai.

Lead an ambitious, multidisciplinary team and reshape how NZTE delivers insight, solutions and impact for New Zealand companies across Greater China.

We’re looking for an experienced, commercially minded leader to bring together our Marketing, Communications and Solutions function across Greater China, spanning marketing, communications, events, digital, market research, Beachheads advisory services and other regional customer solutions.

The focus of this role is about ensuring everything we do starts with our customers. You’ll shape how a diverse team works together, connecting our market knowledge, capability and solutions around the needs of New Zealand companies and the opportunities they have across Greater China.

This is a strong leadership opportunity with genuine scope to make change. We’re looking for someone who can challenge how things have traditionally been done, create greater commercial and customer focus, bring people together to build a stronger approach and, ultimately, drive growth for New Zealand exporters to the Greater China region.

What you’ll be doing

Leading a multidisciplinary team of six direct reports, and an extended team of 12, you’ll set the direction, create the clarity, focus and ways of working that enables the team to deliver at its best.

You’ll:

• Bring together marketing, communications, market research, events, digital advisory, Beachheads coordination and other customer solutions around a clear Greater China strategy and customer needs.
• Work closely with Trade Commissioners, Sector Leads and customer-facing teams to understand where NZTE can have the greatest impact and turn market opportunities into coordinated action.
• Build a more integrated and customer-led approach, ensuring the team's work is forward-looking and connected to the New Zealand companies that can benefit most from our support.
• Lead, coach and develop your team through delivery transformation, creating clarity around purpose, priorities, accountabilities and expectations.
• Use customer and market insight to make clear decisions about what we should start, stop, improve or do more of.
• Create strong connections across NZTE in Greater China and New Zealand, ensuring regional activity is connected with NZTE’s wider work.
• Contribute as a member of the Regional Lead Team, helping shape broader regional strategy and execution.

This is an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of the function. We’re becoming more proactive, commercially focused, and centered on delivering strong outcomes for our customers. You’ll play an important role in how we support our priority customers across Greater China and help us deliver greater impact for them.

What you’ll need

We’re open to a range of relevant backgrounds. You could bring experience from customer experience, commercial strategy, service design, corporate solutions, marketing and communications, or a similar field. What’s most important is your ability to understand customer needs, bring different capabilities and people together, and develop solutions that deliver strong outcomes. Experience developing and selling services or solutions would be an advantage.

What matters most is that you bring:

• Strong commercial and customer instincts. You can understand what a customer is trying to achieve, identify opportunities, and translate that into practical solutions and priorities.
• Credible leadership experience. You know how to set direction, coach and develop people, create clarity and get the best from a multidisciplinary team.
• Experience leading through change. You’re comfortable challenging established ways of working and have the confidence to introduce new approaches. You know how to involve your team in change, creating understanding, commitment, and a clear sense of direction.
• Strategic thinking with a bias for action. You can see the bigger picture and turn strategy into clear priorities, effective ways of working, and strong delivery.
• Strong relationship and influencing skills. You can navigate complexity, build trust, and gain commitment across different teams and stakeholder groups.
• Strong AI capability and mindset, with a track record of adopting AI to improve customer solutions, team effectiveness and ways of working.
• The ability to operate across cultures. You understand the Greater China environment while also being comfortable working within a Western organisation and communicating effectively across the two.
• Excellent judgement and prioritisation. You can make sensible trade-offs, maintain customer focus, and know where to invest limited time and resources for the greatest impact.

Why you will love working here

If you’re commercially curious, energised by change and motivated by helping New Zealand companies succeed in Greater China, we’d love to hear from you.

You will have strong written and verbal communication skills in both English and Mandarin.

For more information about the role please view the Position Description.

What’s next

If you're energised by building relationships, creating commercial outcomes, and helping businesses succeed internationally, we'd love to hear from you.

Please apply with both an English language cover letter and CV.

Please note: This is a locally engaged position. You will already need to be eligible to work in China for NZTE.

This role is banded SH L18

Applications close 11.59pm CST Tuesday 10 November 2026.

We believe New Zealand is good for the world. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) is an equal opportunity employer. At NZTE it is all about our people and we seek diversity of thought; we welcome and encourage you to apply regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, neurodiversity or disability.

If we need to make specific accommodations in any part of the interview process, please note this in your application or discuss with the Talent Acquisition Partner