- Our Leaders
Leadership Team
Una Burns
Interim CEO / Head of Advocacy & Communications
Una Burns is currently leading NOVAS as our Interim CEO, alongside her role as Head of Advocacy and Communications. She has been with NOVAS since 2013 and has extensive experience across research, advocacy, communications and the voluntary sector.
Una holds a BA in History and Politics, an MA in International Relations and a PhD in Irish Emigration History. Her academic background has provided her with extensive experience in research, presenting and communications.
Prior to joining NOVAS, Una worked as an Education Officer with Young Social Innovators and has also undertaken a range of voluntary roles. During her time as a PhD candidate, she gained valuable teaching experience through a number of guest lecturing and tutoring roles at University College Cork (UCC).
Throughout her career, Una has combined her academic expertise with her commitment to the voluntary and community sector, contributing to NOVAS’s advocacy and communications work while supporting the organisation’s mission to end homelessness.
Donal O’Carroll
Head of Finance
Donal O’Carroll joined NOVAS in September 2007 as Head of Finance.
He originally trained in public practice and subsequently held senior finance positions in a number of companies across a wide variety of sectors including manufacturing, pharmaceutical and IT.
Donal is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). He has also served as a board member for a number of other charitable and voluntary organisations.
Darren Crowe
Darren Crowe, Head of Operations, has more than 15 years’ experience in the homeless sector.
Darren has worked in social care services nationally for more than 15 years, with particular experience in the areas of homelessness, including property management and other senior leadership roles. Darren has managed services across the country including residential and community based services. He has a particular interest in change management and aims to ensure that everyone who is supported by us receives the best possible outcomes from the services they engage with.
Darren holds an MA in Social Care from the Institute of Technology, Tralee.
Pamela Gunter
Pamela Gunter, Head of Human Resources, has worked with NOVAS since 2009.
Pamela brings over 18 years’ experience in the Social Care Sector, having worked in management across mainstream children’s residential services, residential services for Separated Children Seeking Asylum and low threshold homeless services, before training as a Work and Organisational Psychologist and moving into Human Resources.
Pamela holds a BA (Hons) in Applied Social Care from Athlone Institute of Technology, a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the Open University and a MSc in Work and Organisational Psychology from the University of Limerick.
Claire Organ
Claire Organ, Head of Housing, has more than 30 years’ social housing experience working to meet the evolving needs of the social housing landscape, with a dedicated focus on general housing, disability housing, care provision supported housing and homelessness.
Claire has previously worked with a number of AHBs across Ireland delivering property supply processes supported by collaboration, partnership and engagement, to meet current and forecasted housing need. Claire has experience of leading out on significant growth and expansion of key quality services, using a proven strategic approach to deliver new homes supported by the delivery of essential management services.
Claire has Professional Qualifications in Governance and Housing Studies and a BBS in Business Administration.
Jackie Leonard
Jackie holds a BA in Social Care and has been working in the homeless sector for her whole career.
She worked at Covenant House in Vancouver, the largest youth homeless organisation in North America, for eight years. Following this, she was the Head of Fundraising at Mid-West Simon Community.
She has extensive experience in individual giving, managing corporate partnerships, relationship building with major donors and creating legacies & bequest programmes.
Jackie is passionate about ending homelessness.
Mark Vella
Mark has more than 20 years’ experience in the social care field.
He started his career in England working in residential mental health services before moving into homeless services in 2003. He began his career with NOVAS in December 2006 where he was tasked with setting up the Mount Brown women’s service in January 2007 and further, oversaw the growth and expansion of the service in December 2014.
Mark holds a BA (Hons) in Humanities from Greenwich University, a BSc (Hons) in Quality & Safety in Health Care from RCSI.
Mark joined the Senior Management Team in May 2017.