Former coach Craig Sneddon has moved to Christchurch and last month stepped down from the role after two years in the gig.
Otago Rugby Football Union chief executive Richard Kinley said they were well through the process and an announcement was imminent.
"I don't really want to leave it running too long.
"But the process always takes a little bit longer than you think."
Kinley said there was "a really good group of applicants".
"We are also looking at a women’s high-performance manager-type role."
Kinley said that role could be paired with the Spirit head coaching job if the successful applicant was keen on both roles.
They would be overseeing the women's academy and high-performance programme.
The Spirit coaching role is a volunteer role but the management role would be paid part-time.
The Spirit upset Wellington 51-38 to reach the Farah Palmer Championship final this year.
They lost to Manawatū 33-3. But it was a very decent season and the new coach will have plenty of talent to work with.
The Otago men’s team had a disappointing NPC campaign.
They finished ninth and missed out on a spot in the playoffs.
Coach Tom Donnelly has moved on and his replacement, Mark Brown, who is based in Canterbury, has made several trips down to Dunedin.
"[Nothing] kicks in until the New Year, but he’s already been down meeting with people and the staff," Kinley said.
"He's very engaged already, which is excellent."
The men's pathway and competition review landed on the desk of New Zealand Rugby in October.
Its contents have the potential to change the New Zealand rugby landscape significantly, although NZR general manager of rugby Steve Lancaster played down suggestions the NPC was in for a significant overhaul when he spoke to the Otago Daily Times earlier in the year.
Kinley said he was not in a position to discuss the recommendations in the report other than confirm "there's been a number of recommendations and a timeframe being developed around when they would look to implement those".
"I know Steve Lancaster talked about this, that the impact wouldn't see changes until at least 2026 anyway because we're at the end of a funding round, and it would be too soon to change competition structures and different things anyway, if that was indeed a recommendation or a change."
Pressed on whether the proposed changes were seismic or just tweaks, Kinley responded: "It depends how far they're going to be taken, I suppose. It's a good question. Probably can't comment too much on that at the moment".
NZR has made sweeping changes to its board, though. While those changes are still to be ratified, Kinley was impressed with the skills of the new-look board and was pleased former Otago chairwoman Rowena Davenport was one of just two boards members to be retained.
"They had over 130 applicants and they interviewed over 30 people, if I remember rightly. So it's been a very robust process, and there's a real range of experiences inside and outside rugby, which I think would probably be a very good balanced board, I would imagine."
