The executive roles of deputy vice chancellor, global and engagement, and director of governance and strategy will only be recruited from a field of women under a section of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 which allows for special measures to promote equality.

Federation University vice chancellor Professor Duncan Bentley said the current executive team consisted of five men and no women and it was a situation that needed to be remedied.

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"This initiative is a proactive step toward gender equity at Federation University. Our workforce is 61 per cent women with no representation at the executive level, and this step aims to achieve inclusivity within our organisation across all levels," he said.

"I believe there is a clear lack of visible role models and pathways for women in our executive leadership and implementing stronger gender diversity at Federation is not only the right thing to do, it makes excellent business sense."

The university's former vice chancellor Professor Helen Bartlett, left in August.

Professor Bentley said advertising for women in the two roles would allow the university to attract high calibre candidates that may otherwise not have applied because of the current all-male executive team.

He said gender-diverse leadership at executive level had been shown to increase an organisation's problem-solving ability, its lateral and critical thinking skills as well as creating stronger job satisfaction and inclusive practices.

"As we're coming out of the pandemic we are, in a sense, re-setting where we're going. We have an issue of under-representation of women in senior positions and it's critical now as a society to absolutely embrace diversity," he said.

"So many areas were fast to take up women in leadership positions. That's sort of stalled and we need to crash through that and model equality.

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"Young women should not need to worry about glass ceilings and inequality. Women got the right to vote more than 100 years ago now - has it really taken this long to still be fighting for equality?"

The university has an action plan to help attract women to leadership positions and provide support for future opportunities.

"This is just one of the methods that Federation and other universities are using to attract excellent women to apply for career opportunities in senior leadership," he said.

"We are hoping to accelerate the achievement of our representation targets so we can all benefit from the increased diversity sooner rather than later."