Director, Information Technology Solutions – KidsAbility

KidsAbility Centre for Child Development (“KidsAbility”) supports over 17,000 children and youth to reach their communication, social, physical and behavioural goals each year. Established in 1957 and located in the growing and diverse Region of Waterloo and Wellington County, KidsAbility is a highly respected, complex, ever-changing, not-for-profit organization that provides the full spectrum of rehabilitation services to children and youth with special needs and their families. Providing vital services to the community, KidsAbility helps kids reach their communication, social, physical and behavioural goals. Providing early and exceptional family-centred services with one goal in mind – to help kids with disabilities achieve great things! The organization is governed by a Not-for-Profit representative Board of Directors and operated by a dedicated, professional staff of over 350 members.

Passionate about providing exceptional family-centred services, KidsAbility supports children and youth from birth to age 21 and their families to achieve their potential goals and to navigate the entire journey from childhood to adulthood, whether they have a diagnosis or not. Funded through the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, purchase-service options, and the generous support of the community, KidsAbility’s goal is to get the right help to support children at the right time.
This is an exciting time for KidsAbility – the Board recently announced the appointment of Jennifer Foster as the organization`s new Chief Executive Officer, effective January 3, 2024. To help facilitate her vision for the organization, Jennifer is actively recruiting a Director, Information Technology Solutions to round out her incredible leadership team. Additionally, KidsAbility will be embarking on the creation of the organization's next strategic plan, with a focus on research and innovation.

KidsAbility believes every child deserves to thrive. Through therapy services, innovative family programming and adaptive pediatric technology, KidAbility is making a lasting impact on strengthening families and helping children thrive while ensuring an inclusive community where every child is valued - today, tomorrow and for the future.

Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the Director of Information Technology Solutions (ITS) will provide senior-level leadership and direction to the Information Technology Solutions department and the Foundation. The Director will continually advance security, compliance, infrastructure, and systems to enable and support company growth and objectives while maintaining the strategic vision and lead the multi-disciplined IT department consisting of governance, compliance, security, privacy, infrastructure, application management, IT operations, technical support, project management and data analytics. The Director will work with the CEO to Provide strategic leadership on the use of IT across the organization, including enterprise data management and electronic service delivery opportunities, in partnership with all organizational divisions and departments and support the need for more timely and better access to data to support decision making across the organization.

The successful candidate has a degree in computer science, business administration or a related discipline and several years of experience in an IT leadership role within a complex environment. Experience in network/system security, prevention and detection will be required as well as experience with SharePoint, and PowerBI products. The successful candidate will have outstanding problem-solving, interpersonal, collaboration and verbal and written communication skills as well as demonstrated expertise in designing, building, transforming, and managing applications, coupled with extensive experience leading complex change enabled by technology. We are seeking an exceptional relationship builder with the ability to forge consensus across a diverse organization by bringing a strong service orientation and demonstrated change management success. Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Microsoft 365 Certified: Security Administrator Associate, or other Microsoft certifications (Azure, Identity, Security, Systems etc.) are all assets.

The Director, Information Technology Solutions will be based in the KidsAbility head office located in Waterloo with travel to various KidsAbility sites in Kitchener, Cambridge, Guelph, Fergus and Palmerston. KidsAbility would like to have leadership presence at all sites, therefore the Director will have the flexibility to work between the various sites.