Operations Manager appointment in regional Queensland

Ameropa is an international agribusiness with operations across Australia, supplying and distributing agricultural products into regional markets. When one of its regional Queensland sites needed an Operations Manager, the role carried full site accountability - people, safety, operations, maintenance, logistics, customer service and financial performance. This was hands-on leadership, run from the floor rather than the office.

The role itself was clear. Finding someone to fill it, in a market where the strongest operators were already earning well and had no reason to move, was the hard part.

The Challenge

In regional Queensland, many of the best-suited candidates were already on strong packages through mining, FIFO, heavy industry or contractor work. They weren't applying, because they didn't need to. Reaching them meant going well beyond an advertised role and into direct, relationship-led search. Ameropa needed someone who could bring:

• Strong site, operations or maintenance leadership experience
• The ability to manage a small team and lead from the floor
• Exposure to budgets, P&L, cost control or business ownership
• A strong safety mindset, comfortable in a manual site environment
• The ability to build trust with local teams and drive accountability
• Practical problem-solving across maintenance, equipment and site performance

The brief was for a practical, commercially aware leader who would see a permanent regional role as an opportunity worth taking - not a fallback.

Our Approach

Advertising generated limited traction, so the search became a direct outreach campaign. We mapped businesses and industries across the region and worked the phones, opening conversations with people who weren't in the market at all. Rather than screening on job title, we searched on the underlying capability the role needed - hands-on leadership, operational accountability, safety, budget exposure and maintenance understanding - which widened the field to strong operators whose titles didn't obviously match.

Our process included:

• Targeted outreach to passive candidates across regional operations and industrial markets
• Mapping local and adjacent businesses - quarrying, logistics, transport, engineering services - to find transferable site leadership capability
• Screening for hands-on leadership style, safety mindset and practical operational experience
• Assessing budget, P&L, business ownership and cost-control exposure
• Testing motivation carefully, particularly around salary, location and long-term fit

As salary and market constraints became clear, we shared them with Ameropa early and directly. That kept expectations realistic and gave the client a live read of what the market would bear, rather than only the final shortlist.

The Outcome

The appointed candidate had run his own engineering and maintenance business for more than a decade, with direct exposure to managing people, customers, budgets, quoting, job costing, procurement, cash flow and project delivery. His background ran deep on the technical side too - maintenance, fabrication, plant repair, preventative maintenance and workshop leadership.

What set him apart was his fit for the environment. He was local, practical and comfortable leading from the floor, with long-standing relationships across customers and teams. His motivation matched the opportunity - moving out of small business ownership into a stable, permanent leadership role where he could keep adding value. He was assessed through detailed interviews, role-specific screening, reference checks and practical examples of how he had led people, handled pressure and delivered in operational environments.

He wasn't looking when we called. In a regional market where the best operators are already well paid and rarely answering ads, the appointment came down to local knowledge, direct conversations and an honest account of what the market would bear.