Current Vacancies
Operations Director (mostly home-based) circa £90,000 p.a.
CDS is a unique organisation with an unusual mission – to provide, support and promote community-led housing and co-operation – so that more people can shape the things that matter most to them. We are a social landlord in our own right, with more than 820 rented and shared ownership homes. Alongside that, we are the largest co-op services agency in the South East, providing landlord finance and governance expertise as a service provider to around 35 housing co-ops and their 1,800 homes. We are also a promoter of co-operation and Community Led Housing, setting aside a proportion of our surplus each year to invest in projects and ideas that can help to scale up the sector to expand the use of co-operation as an effective and empowering business model.
We are seeking a skilled and authentic leader to become our new Operations Director. This experienced problem-solver will effectively oversee our landlord service, including our Income, Housing, Repairs, Asset Management and Property Compliance teams. You will inspire the teams you lead and will be a visible and active member of our Senior Management Team. You will support our mission through the work of your teams to make sure our landlord service is community-led by seeking out ways to meaningfully involve residents in decisions that matter most to them.
As the social housing sector is once again looking to deliver a more resident-centred and community-led approach to how we provide and manage homes, we will look to you to develop and drive strategies that put residents at the heart of our work whilst ensuring safety, quality and value for money.
Our “U-Tick” values are:
Unity We work as one team, with one reputation
Trust We thrive to be reliable, fair and to act with integrity
Intention We know why we do things, we have plans and we monitor them
Impact We care about the impact we have on others
Collaboration We achieve more when we work with others
Communication We seek understanding as a basis for win/win solutions
Kindness We are brave & hones, facing difficult issues with empathy
These values drive everything we do, and we expect the same from you. With a strong sense of accountability and integrity, you will make decisions with intention and tirelessly pursue facts, resolve complex issues and go toward difficult things, seeking always to leave things better than you found them. Apart from the opportunity to make your mark at CDS by serving as Operations Director and getting to prove your ability to make quantitative improvements in our landlord service, we offer a competitive salary, bonus scheme and generous benefits. We take our employee engagement seriously and will invest in your development and training.
We are actively working toward becoming an anti-racist and inclusive organisation, open to challenge and learning in all our work. We are committed to looking for all kinds of talent to build a diverse workforce that represents the people we serve and encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.
Closing date: Monday, 27th February 2023 at 10am
First interviews: Tuesday, 14th March 2023 at our offices in Central London
Second interviews: Friday, 17th March 2023
Why work with us?
We pride ourselves on being a good employer, valuing our staff and working in an open, fair and collaborative way. We currently employ 40 members of staff across 4 core departments, Senior Management, Finance, Corporate Services and Operations.
We look for people to join us with a passion for housing, collaboration and helping people to achieve. CDS respects and values the differences of our clients, partners and staff. We embrace diversity and will treat everyone we work with fairly and with respect.
Our employees must share our core values and strive to help us achieve our purpose, to help us grow our capacity to enable and deliver co-op and community led housing solutions. At CDS, the way we do things is as important as the things that we do. We want to be trusted as a business because we are reliable, fair and act with integrity and everyone who works with us must behave in a way that supports this.
We are fundamentally a service business – and service is personal! This means that people are at the heart of our vision, building and developing collaborative partnerships with others to make the most of talent and opportunity. Our own people are our greatest asset and we are equally passionate about effective collaboration within our team.
We have a robust culture of service, performance, continuous improvement and strong leadership to keep us moving toward our goal. We all expect to work hard and take personal responsibility for our work, our delivery and our actions. We also really value our humanity – so kindness, consideration and having fun are important to us too!
We are always on the lookout for talented people to join our team. If you are interested in working with us, get in touch and send us your CV
