Renee Leon will begin as vice-chancellor on September 1 and will eventually relocate from Canberra to Bathurst for the role.

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 Charles Sturt University after a difficult period of redundancies and restructuring at the institution.

Ms Leon said challenging times also brought opportunity as organisations could hone in on their core purpose.

"Change is our landscape in every part of society now," she said.

"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."

She said the university had a role in ensuring the regions had skills they needed in health and education as well as conducting vital research in agriculture.

READ MORE:

Ms Leon will continue as chair of the ACT government's sexual assault prevention and response steering committee until recommendations are ready.

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.

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.

"If there's ever any issues to do with quality and probity in any organisation that I've worked in my focus is very much on making sure that they're resolved appropriately."

As the first woman to be vice-chancellor at this university, she hopes female students will be inspired to have leadership ambitions.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: