We are seeking a senior Business Intelligence and Complex Investigations practitioner to join our client in Sydney at Senior Director level. The ideal candidate will hold senior intelligence, investigations or qualified-legal credentials with at least 10 years of relevant experience, the most recent 3+ years at Director or equivalent senior-leadership level, and a track record of leading the most complex multi-jurisdictional pre-transaction due-diligence, asset-tracing and political-risk advisory mandates. The successful candidate will lead bet-the-deal and bet-the-recovery investigations, define the practice's source-handling and tradecraft doctrine, carry a meaningful named-account pipeline across the Australian and Trans-Tasman PE / superannuation / family-office / litigation-counsel landscape, and contribute to the practice's strategy as an emerging Partner-track operator.

Confidential Client. Applying to this position means that you are interested to have an initial confidential discussion about how we can help you to identify and join a new business intelligence and complex investigations practice. With your authorisation we will exclusively run the entire application and recruitment process for you, keeping you apprised at every step. With over 30 years' combined experience of helping the most talented intelligence and investigations practitioners to make safe exits to launch rewarding new careers, we have the experience, network and ability to help you.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead high-stakes business-intelligence and complex-investigations engagements, typically running AUD 750k - 4m, often with Australia-NZ-PNG-APAC overlay, with full responsibility for engagement strategy, hypothesis design, source mix, signed-off written deliverable and adversarial-context defensibility.
• Define the practice's source-handling and tradecraft doctrine on HUMINT cultivation, OSINT methodology, multi-language records aggregation, cross-border beneficial-ownership unwinding and adversarial-context defensibility under the ABI / WAEPA / IBE ethical codes.
• Lead the most complex adversarial-context asset-tracing on civil-recovery and judgment-enforcement matters - capital-movement reconstruction across BVI / Cayman / Mauritius / Bahamas / Trust-and-Foundation structures - and integrate with civil-recovery counsel on Mareva and freezing-order applications under the Federal Court Rules 2011.
• Take signed-off positions on senior management-background reports for PE buy-side mandates, FIRB-relevance reviews, sovereign-counterparty profiles, superannuation-fund investment-target reviews, family-office investment-target reviews and pre-IPO red-flag reviews; engage with subject-counterparty challenge and clarification responses where required.
• Direct political-risk and country-risk advisory mandates on the most sensitive matters across the Pacific, South-East Asia, Greater China, India and South Asia, including FIRB-relevance reviews, regulatory-shift forecasting and sovereign-counterparty profiling.
• Develop and own a sustained pipeline of named accounts at General Counsel, CFO, Head of M&A, Managing Partner of PE houses, Head of Investment at superannuation funds, family-office CIO and Audit Committee Chair level, and at relevant law firm partner level; originate or co-originate AUD 1.5m+ annually in qualified business-intelligence opportunities.
• Convert reactive case work into multi-year retainer engagements covering subject-monitoring programmes, standing-counterparty-screening retainers, ongoing-due-diligence frameworks for PE buy-side teams, superannuation-fund investment-monitoring panels and family-office monitoring panels.
• Set methodology and tooling-strategy direction within the business-intelligence sub-practice; directly supervise, mentor and advocate for Directors and Senior Managers - championing their advancement at promotion rounds, sponsoring sustained upskilling on emerging methodology and AI tooling, and shaping their external profile-building on tradecraft and writing depth.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• Multiple senior intelligence, investigations or legal credentials, such as Master Licence Class 2A under the NSW Security and Investigation Industry Act 1996 plus CFE plus CAMS, or qualified-lawyer status plus CFE plus ABI membership - typically multiple at this level.
• At least 10 years of relevant experience in business intelligence, corporate investigations, asset-tracing, OSINT-led research, political-risk advisory, intelligence-services background or qualified-legal practice, with the most recent 3+ years at Director or equivalent senior-leadership level.
• Demonstrable track record of leading bet-the-deal and bet-the-recovery investigations with full hypothesis design, source-mix and signed-off written-deliverable responsibility.
• Direct experience operating with General Counsel, CFOs, Heads of M&A, Managing Partners / Heads of Investment at PE / hedge-fund / superannuation / family-office level and instructing solicitors at partner level.
• Working knowledge at supervisory-policy depth of the Australian intelligence-and-investigations framework: the NSW Security and Investigation Industry Act 1996 and state-equivalent licensing regimes, the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles for HUMINT / OSINT, the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW) for source-handling boundaries, the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 (FIRB), the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012, the Criminal Code (Cth) cross-border bribery framework, and the Modern Slavery Act 2018.
• Authority on subject-centric investigations methodology at supervisory-policy depth: hypothesis-driven research design, multi-language and cross-border records aggregation, beneficial-ownership unwinding through cross-jurisdictional structures, HUMINT cultivation under ethical codes, and adversarial-context defensibility frameworks.
• Familiarity with industry-standard business-intelligence tooling, including entity-resolution and graph-intelligence platforms (such as Sayari Graph, Castellum.AI, Refinitiv World-Check, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance or LexisNexis Bridger), corporate-records and credit-data platforms (such as Bureau Van Dijk Orbis, Pitchbook, Mergermarket or Capital IQ), social-media intelligence platforms (such as Babel Street or Maltego), and court-records aggregators across multiple jurisdictions.
• Demonstrable history of converting business-intelligence engagement relationships into multi-year subject-monitoring retainer or standing-due-diligence work.
• Established relationships with law firm partners in commercial litigation, class actions, white-collar crime, regulatory enforcement, M&A litigation, asset-recovery and internal-investigations practices who refer and instruct business-intelligence and asset-tracing work; sustained named-account level engagement is the strongest evidence.
• High-agency operating style, calm and credible under tight engagement deadlines and adversarial-challenge pressure, with the methodological discipline to ensure findings are evidence-based, structured and defensible.

Preferred Experience:

• Prior background in intelligence services, investigative journalism (notably the AFR, ABC Four Corners or international investigations desks) or specialist corporate-intelligence boutiques.
• Australian Government security clearance (NV1 or above) for practitioners engaging on government and sovereign-counterparty mandates.
• Royal Commission or Commission-of-Inquiry advisor experience.
• Postgraduate qualification: Master's in international relations, security studies, intelligence studies, journalism, finance, governance, MBA, or LLM with investigations / regulatory / criminal-justice relevance.
• Cross-border investigations experience across Australia / NZ / PNG / Pacific and the broader APAC region.
• Published authorship on intelligence, due-diligence, asset-tracing or political-risk themes; conference-level speaking on business intelligence.
• Track record of testifying or signed-off declaration on intelligence-and-investigations issues in Australian-court or arbitration proceedings.
• Independent monitor or standing-due-diligence retainer track record.
• Growth-mindset operating posture and visible engagement with the AI developments reshaping business intelligence and complex investigations: candidates who track tooling shifts (such as AI-assisted OSINT and entity-resolution via Sayari Graph or Castellum.AI, LLM-aided source-language translation, or ML-driven beneficial-ownership inference across FIRB-relevance and Pacific-counterparty structures), share that knowledge with the Director and Manager bench under their supervision, and have a track record of building team-upskilling programmes on emerging methodologies.

Compensation:

Competitive package commensurate with seniority and experience, including base, performance-based bonus, long-term incentives and (where applicable) partner-track equity participation.

Next Steps:

This opportunity is open to Australian citizens, permanent residents and qualified candidates with relevant Australian work-rights status who match the above criteria. Please apply to receive prompt contact from an experienced and specialist business intelligence and complex investigations recruitment consultant.

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