Operations Director

Help us grow our impact and bring comfort to even more children
Cian's Kennels is a registered charity dedicated to ensuring that hospitalised children can have their own dog — or a specially trained therapy dog — by their side for an extra dose of comfort, reassurance and happiness during their stay.

We currently coordinate visits, veterinary checks and transport services at a dedicated unit at Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin and mobile unit at Midland Regional Hospital Mullingar, and we are now ready to grow our reach and deepen our impact.

To support this next phase of development, we are seeking an experienced, driven and people-focused Operations Director to lead our volunteer teams, strengthen our service delivery and fundraising efforts, and help expand our services to additional hospitals.

About the Role
This is a senior leadership role with responsibility for ensuring our services are delivered safely, consistently and compassionately.  The Operations Director will help to establish the processes and structures to develop Cian’s Kennels from a localised service into a national charity.

Key responsibilities include:
•    Providing strategic direction in line with our mission, vision and core values
•    Leading and managing our volunteer teams across service delivery and fundraising activities
•    Ensuring high standards, clear processes and strong communication across all operations
•    Supporting and mentoring volunteers to enable them to thrive in their roles
•    Driving awareness of the charity’s services through outreach, partnerships and community engagement
•    Identifying and progressing opportunities to extend services 
•    Building and nurturing relationships with healthcare partners, donors, sponsors and other relevant organisations
•    Contributing to strategic planning and organisational development
•    Leading discussions with new partners as we expand the services 
•    Ensuring all services meet strict governance standards
•    Standardising Cian’s Kennels services across all sites

Required Knowledge, Skills & Experience
Experience: 
•    3-5 years in a Management or Senior Management role ideally within health care, disability, or charity sectors. 
•    Track record of establishing, managing and scaling projects and services

Knowledge: 
•    Understanding of the Irish charity regulatory environment (CRA) and/or clinical governance frameworks.
Skills: 
•    Ability to think strategically and establish processes, systems and plans which will be delivered by a volunteer base 
•    Excellent influencing and communication skills; ability to work between board-level strategy and hands-on operations
•    Excellent communications, content creation, writing and social media skills

About You
We are looking for a confident and collaborative leader who:
•    Has experience managing teams, ideally volunteers
•    Is passionate about service excellence and community impact
•    Brings strong organisational and operational oversight skills
•    Is an effective communicator, comfortable representing the charity externally
•    Has experience or interest in fundraising and partnership development
•    Is proactive, solutions-focused and comfortable working both strategically and hands-on
•    Holds a full driver’s licence.

Most importantly, you will share our commitment to bringing comfort and joy to children in hospital and be motivated to help us reach even more families.

Location, Hours & Flexibility
•    While this is a remote working role, it is expected that at least 50% of working time will be spent visiting and engaging with volunteers in Longford, Mullingar, Dublin and other hospital locations as services expand
•    Working hours are Monday to Friday, with flexibility required to support events and key activities
.