De Reus will take up the role in January 2013, having agreed to depart PSV/FC Eindhoven after just six months as the BeNe League club's manager.

The 51-year-old succeeds long-time coach Tom Sermanni, who departed to take up the head coaching role with the United States women's team.

De Reus began her coaching career in 1994, holding a range of positions in with Netherlands' girls youth representative sides.

She held managerial positions with several Dutch women's league clubs and from September, 2010 to January, 2012 was heavily involved with the Jordan Football Association, including the roles of head coach and technical director.

"We put in place a very thorough search process and we had extremely high calibre coaches apply from Australia and overseas," Football Federation Australia chief executive officer David Gallop said via statement.

"Hesterine has 18 years of coaching experience, all the relevant technical qualifications and an impressive track record working with national women’s youth teams and elite women’s professional clubs. She has the right mix of experience and skills for this important position."

De Reus spoke of her excitement of taking the helm of the Matildas: "I had the opportunity to watch some of the Matildas matches at the 2011 Fifa Women's World Cup in Germany and I very much enjoyed their style of football," she said.

"We have some very ambitious plans for the team over the coming years and with the support of FFA and the AIS I am confident that we can perform on the international stage to the level that we aspire to."