Director of Operations

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Sky is one of Europe's leading media and entertainment companies. Our innovative products connect 23 million customers to the best apps, and all the entertainment, sports, news and arts they love, including our own award-winning original content.

The Role

The Director of Operations is a key member of the Sky Ireland Executive Leadership Team, responsible for shaping and delivering the operating model for Sky Ireland.

This is a broad executive leadership role with accountability for customer operations, customer experience, operational strategy, commercial delivery, digital transformation, AI adoption, operational resilience and regulatory excellence.

The role leads one of the largest operational functions in the business through a combination of direct leadership, strategic partnerships and outsourced service providers across Ireland, India and South Africa.

Working closely with the CEO and Executive Leadership Team, the individual will define how Sky Ireland serves customers in an increasingly digital, AI-enabled and regulated environment.

The role is responsible for designing, leading and continuously evolving Sky Ireland's operating model, ensuring exceptional customer experiences, sustainable commercial performance, operational excellence, regulatory compliance and AI-enabled transformation.

As the executive leader for Operations, the role represents the function at Executive and regulatory level while contributing to enterprise-wide strategy and investment decisions.

The successful candidate will combine strategic thinking with exceptional operational execution, building an organisation that delivers outstanding customer outcomes while driving sustainable commercial growth, operational efficiency and regulatory compliance.

Key Responsibilities

• Accountable for the end-to-end delivery of customer operations across all contact centre channels, including Customer Service, Sales, Retention, Loyalty and specialist support functions, ensuring exceptional customer outcomes and commercial performance.
• Provide executive leadership and governance of outsourced customer operations delivered through strategic business partners across India and South Africa, ensuring operational excellence, regulatory compliance and continuous improvement.
• Lead the strategy and performance of Sky Retail in Ireland, driving commercial growth, operational excellence, customer experience and brand representation across the retail estate.
• Lead the strategic management of third-party retail partnerships, ensuring strong commercial performance, exceptional customer experience and delivery of all contractual and operational obligations.
• Own the end-to-end in-home customer experience, working in partnership with Home Service providers to deliver outstanding installation, service and repair experiences while improving customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
• Lead Workforce Management and Planning, ensuring the organisation has the capability, capacity and forecasting accuracy required to deliver market-leading service levels across voice, messaging and digital channels.
• Oversee the operational infrastructure that enables customer delivery, including workforce capability, learning and development, operational facilities, business continuity, crisis management and contingency planning, ensuring a resilient and future-ready operating environment.

Customer Strategy & Experience

• Own the end-to-end customer operating model across all customer touchpoints ensuring the delivery of a seamless, differentiated and customer-centric experience.
• Define and lead the strategy for Customer Service, Sales, Retention, Loyalty, Retail and Home Services, championing the Voice of the Customer and embedding customer outcomes into every operational and commercial decision.

Operational Performance

• Lead operational excellence across all customer channels and partner operations, delivering consistently high standards of performance, service and quality.
• Drive improvements in customer satisfaction, first contact resolution, complaints performance, productivity and operational efficiency through data-driven decision making, continuous improvement and technology-enabled solutions.

Commercial Leadership

• Partner with Commercial, Product and Marketing teams to deliver profitable and sustainable growth.
• Drive improvements in customer lifetime value, retention, sales performance, ARPU and trading outcomes, balancing commercial objectives with customer experience, operational excellence and regulatory requirements.

Transformation & Innovation

• Lead the transformation of customer operations, creating a future-ready operating model that leverages digital technologies, AI, automation and process simplification.
• Foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement that enhances customer experience, improves operational efficiency and delivers long-term business value.

Digital & AI

• Champion the adoption of digital capabilities and artificial intelligence across customer operations, identifying opportunities to improve customer journeys, increase automation, enhance colleague productivity and deliver measurable improvements in operational performance and customer outcomes.

Partner & Outsourcing Leadership

• Provide executive leadership and governance of strategic outsourcing partnerships across Ireland, India and South Africa.
• Build high-performing partnerships that deliver exceptional customer outcomes, commercial value, operational excellence and regulatory compliance, while driving continuous improvement and innovation across the extended operating model.

Regulatory & Governance

• Provide executive leadership for operational governance, ensuring robust control frameworks, effective risk management and compliance with all applicable regulatory and consumer protection requirements.
• Build strong relationships with internal governance functions and external regulators.
• Build and maintain strong, constructive relationships with regulators, ensuring Sky Ireland consistently meets regulatory requirements and delivers excellent customer and compliance outcomes.
• In the future this role may be required to undertake a regulated Pre-Approval Controlled Function (PCF) role in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements.

Operational Risk & Resilience

• Lead the development and continuous enhancement of a resilient operational environment, ensuring effective management of operational risk, business continuity, crisis management, outsourcing risk and operational resilience.
• Ensure appropriate governance, controls and contingency arrangements are in place to protect customers, support business continuity and maintain regulatory compliance.

People Leadership

• Lead and develop a high-performing, inclusive and customer-focused organisation, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement.
• Shape the culture of Sky Ireland through visible, inspirational leadership, creating an environment where colleagues are engaged, empowered and able to perform at their best.
• Own the People Strategy for Operations, ensuring a clear focus on organisational capability, leadership development, succession planning, talent, engagement, recognition and communication.
• Build the skills and capabilities required to deliver a future-ready organisation, embedding digital, AI and continuous improvement capabilities.

What you'll bring:

• Proven success leading complex, cross-functional teams in dynamic customer environments.
• Strong vision regarding world class customer service
• Provide executive leadership for operational governance, ensuring robust control frameworks, effective risk management and compliance with all applicable regulatory and consumer protection requirements.
• Candidates should bring experience from a consumer-centric, regulated environment where customer experience, governance, risk management and regulatory compliance are critical to business success.
• Strong stakeholder management, highly developed communication skills - written, visual and verbal - with an ability to adapt tone and content for different audiences.
• Experience in managing third-party partners and ensuring compliance with corporate standards.
• A continuous improvement mindset and the ability to foster the same in others
• A flexible leadership style with the ability to be visionary and planned, as well as tactical and focussed on the immediate term
• Ability to work and react in pressurised situations, providing clear direction to teams and summaries to senior leadership team.
• Track record of successfully delivering against ambitious commercial metrics.
• Strong leadership experience and potential for growth.
• Influential and persuasive at the highest levels of the organisation
• An independent thinker willing to challenge the status quo if it means better outcomes

The successful candidate will be:

• Strategic - Able to shape long-term strategy while delivering short-term results.
• Customer Obsessed - Passionate about improving customer outcomes.
• Commercial - Balances customer, commercial and operational priorities.
• Transformational - Leads change through innovation, technology and simplification.
• Enterprise Leader - Thinks beyond Operations and contributes to the overall success of Sky Ireland/Group
• Collaborative - Builds trusted relationships across functions, markets and partners.
• Courageous - Challenges constructively, makes difficult decisions and leads through ambiguity.
• Inclusive - Creates an environment where people perform at their best.
• Resilient - Leads confidently through change and complexity.

Your office base:
Dublin

Our striking Ireland HQ has an A-list location on Burlington Road, walking distance from central Dublin. Grand Canal Dock and Pearse train stations are both around 1.5km away, and we're a short stroll from the buses of Baggot Street, Leeson Street and Waterloo Road. There's plenty of parking for cyclists too.

Inclusion:

Recognised as an 'Inclusive Top 50 Employer' and a 'Times Top 50 Employer for Women', we're working hard to ensure we're a truly inclusive place to work.

It's our people that make Sky Europe's leading entertainment company. That's why we work hard to be an inclusive employer, so everyone at Sky can be their best.

At Sky we don't just look at your CV. We're more focused on who you are and your potential. We also know that everyone has a life outside work, so we're happy to discuss flexible working.

And we'll do everything we can to support you during your application. If you need us to make any adjustments to our recruitment process, speak to our recruitment team who will be happy to support you.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.