The Role
Our client, a non profit organisation is seeking an experienced Deputy Head of Quality, Risk & Compliance to join a senior leadership team. In this strategic role, you will lead and embed the organisation’s quality, risk, and compliance frameworks, ensuring services are safe, high-quality, and aligned with regulatory requirements and best practice. You will work closely with senior leadership and the board to strengthen governance, drive continuous improvement, and foster a culture of accountability and excellence.
Tasks & Duties
- Lead and embed an integrated Quality, Risk and Compliance framework, ensuring robust systems and processes support safe, high-quality service delivery.
- Oversee the organisation’s quality management system, including policies, procedures, standards, governance documentation and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Establish and monitor quality and risk metrics (KPIs/KRIs), ensuring clear reporting and performance oversight aligned with regulatory and organisational expectations.
- Develop and maintain risk management frameworks, including risk registers, incident reporting processes, root cause analysis and mitigation planning.
- Provide risk analysis, assurance reporting and insights to senior leadership and board committees to support strategic decision-making.
- Ensure compliance with relevant Irish legislation, regulatory requirements and sectoral standards, monitoring emerging regulations and guiding organisational readiness.
- Act as the organisation’s Data Protection Officer (DPO), overseeing GDPR compliance, data governance, breach management, and data protection training.
- Lead the incident management framework, overseeing reporting, investigations, trend analysis and implementation of corrective and preventative actions.
- Oversee compliance with Health & Safety obligations, monitoring inspections, assessments, incidents and corrective actions to promote a safe environment.
- Manage the organisation’s policy governance framework, ensuring policies are maintained, regularly reviewed and effectively embedded across teams.
- Support governance, assurance and audit processes, including board and committee reporting, audit preparation, and oversight of compliance improvements.
- Build organisational capability in quality, risk and compliance, leading the function, developing staff capability, supporting cross-functional collaboration and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
Experience, Knowledge & Qualifications
- 8+ years’ experience in senior roles across quality, risk, compliance, governance, data protection or assurance.
- Proven experience designing and implementing organisation-wide quality, risk and compliance frameworks.
- Strong knowledge of the Irish regulatory and compliance environment and governance requirements.
- Relevant third-level qualification; professional qualifications in risk, compliance, governance, quality or data protection are advantageous.
- Expertise in GDPR and data protection, with experience supporting or acting as a Data Protection Officer.
- Experience working closely with senior leadership teams and board-level stakeholders.
- Strong ability to analyse data, interpret trends and produce clear reports to support decision-making and organisational improvement.
- Excellent communication, analytical and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience leading teams or building organisational capability in quality, risk or compliance functions.
- Strong professional judgement, problem-solving ability and attention to detail, with a commitment to ethical practice and trauma-informed approaches.
For further information, please contact Sabrina Carroll at FRS Recruitment
