A former senior public servant has been named as the new vice-chancellor of Charles Sturt University.
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Renee Leon will become CSU's first female vice-chancellor when she starts in the role from September 1 and will eventually relocate from Canberra to Bathurst.
Ms Leon has had experience leading thousands of staff and millions of customers during her time as secretary of the Department of Human Services, meaning she is no stranger to managing complex, public-facing institutions.
However, she'll be taking the helm of CSU after a difficult period of redundancies and restructuring at the institution.
"We need to be able to be nimble enough to roll with that but also clear enough about purpose and make sure that the things we do do are really aligned with our priorities, so that's the approach that I'll be bringing to the university role."
Ms Leon said CSU had a role in ensuring the regions had skills they needed in health and education as well as conducting vital research in agriculture.
She will be succeeding Professor Andrew Vann, who was meant to finish his term as vice-chancellor in December 2021 but has been on a sabbatical since June 2020.
Professor John Germov will return to his role as provost and deputy vice-chancellor (academic) after being the interim vice-chancellor.
Make sure that the things we do do are really aligned with our priorities
- Renee Leon
Ms Leon said she was not perturbed by criticism from former regional education minister Andrew Gee who called last year for an independent audit into the finances, management and operations of the university.
"I'm confident that the council and the chancellor have been progressing anything that needed to be dealt with over the past year," she said.
As the first woman to be vice-chancellor at CSU, she hopes female students will be inspired to have leadership ambitions.
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