Australia's first Indigenous woman ambassador has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA).

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman Julie-Ann Guivarra, who previously served as Australia's Ambassador to Spain, Andorra and Equatorial Guinea from 2018 to 2020, will officially take on the role after several months as acting CEO.

Since 2021, Ms Guivarra has been a Senior Executive at the NIAA, overseeing the coordination of Commonwealth policy development, program design, and implementation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Before that, she held the position of Australia's Ambassador for Gender Equality.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy welcomed the appointment, saying she had worked closely with Ms Guivarra on "delivering on our key priorities, including our remote employment program".

"I know her passion for inclusion, collaboration and making a positive impact," Senator McCarthy said.

"I look forward to continuing to work with her to deliver our government."

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Ms Guivarra succeeds Yinjibarndi woman Jody Broun, who stepped down in August amid concerns from Indigenous leaders about the agency's First Nations engagement requirements.

One of the NIAA's responsibilities is the management and monitoring of Indigenous employment and procurement requirements for federal contracts, and serious concerns were raised in June over revelations an audit of federal contracts found Indigenous employment rules were dropped in two-thirds of cases.

It found the exemptions applied to $70 billion worth of contracts, meaning they were not required to meet minimum Indigenous employment or business participation targets, and drew criticism from Opposition Indigenous affairs spokesperson Senator Kerrynne Liddle.

"For transparency, it is also important for the NIAA to reveal the impact of any exemption," Senator Liddle told National Indigenous Times at the time.

"According to the Australian National Audit Office, only one in five contracts is monitored for compliance and of those, only a quarter are compliant. It is simply not good enough."

Northern Territory Indigenous Business Network chief executive Naomi Anstess also raised concerns, describing the audit results as evidence of a "critical gap between the intent of the Indigenous Procurement Policy and its implementation in practice".

Ms Guivarra's five-year term will begin on 1 December 2025.