Regional Director of Operations, Americas and Asia Pacific

Regional Director of Operations, Americas and Asia Pacific

Kenyon International Emergency Services, part of the TrustFlight Group

Vancouver, British Columbia  |  Full time, permanent  |  Salary: CAD 160,000 to 175,000 base, plus annual performance bonus, activation uplift and benefits

When the worst happens, families need someone they can trust. Lead that response.

When an aircraft is lost, a ship is in distress or a community is struck by disaster, families are suddenly facing the hardest days of their lives. They need answers, they need to be treated with dignity, and they need to know that the people they have lost are being cared for. For more than a century, Kenyon International Emergency Services has been the organisation that airlines, governments and major companies call on to make sure that happens.

We are looking for a senior crisis leader to direct that response across the Americas and Asia Pacific. This is a role for someone who has stood in the room when it mattered, who leads with calm authority, and who believes that how an organisation treats the bereaved and the injured says everything about its character.

About Kenyon

Kenyon provides emergency planning, family assistance, humanitarian support and recovery services to clients around the world, drawing on a network of more than 2,500 trained responders who can be mobilised at short notice into any jurisdiction. Our clients rely on us to keep their promises to the people affected by an incident, and we hold ourselves to that standard every day, not only on the day of an activation.

Kenyon is part of the TrustFlight Group, an aviation safety and compliance technology business. That gives Kenyon something unusual in this sector: a world class technology team working alongside it, and a genuine commitment to using AI to make crisis response faster, better informed and more humane. Our values are simple and we mean them: integrity, and a customer first attitude in everything we do.

The role

Kenyon operates a two hub leadership model. You will lead the Vancouver hub, with regional accountability for operational delivery, readiness, contracted offices and relationships across the Americas and Asia Pacific. Your peer, the Regional Director of Operations in Bracknell, leads the UK, Europe and Africa. Together you share accountability for the readiness and quality of Kenyon’s response worldwide.

Senior Incident Director for activations

Senior on call duty is shared between the two Directors on a fixed twelve hour rota, with a structured handover at each change of duty, so that cover is continuous around the clock and neither Director works through their own night. Your window runs from approximately 10:00 to 22:00 Pacific time.

When an incident arises during your window, wherever in the world it occurs, you take up the role of Senior Incident Director. You will have the authority to set the deployment posture, commit responders and stand the organisation up or down without further approval. Where a client requires it, you will deploy as their strategic point of contact, leading the response on their behalf at the most demanding moments an organisation can face, including mass casualty, government led and politically sensitive events.

Major activations are infrequent, typically once every five years, and Kenyon holds its capability through a surge based model rather than a large permanent workforce. Your judgement of regional readiness, kept current every week of the year, is what makes that model work.

What you will lead

·       Regional readiness and response. Maintain and continuously measure activation readiness across the Americas and Asia Pacific, and develop the procedures, protocols and contingency plans that underpin it.

·       Your team and offices. Line manage the Regional Operations Manager in Houston, run the Houston office and Vancouver hub as one regional function, and hold contracted offices to defined standards through quarterly reviews and an annual assessment.

·       Protecting those we serve. Make sure the information of casualties, families and clients is protected with the same care during and after an activation as on any other day.

·       The responder network. Work with the Responder Manager to keep the network vetted, trained and available across the region, including building language capable responders across Asia Pacific.

·       Global call centre and language capability. Own, on behalf of Kenyon worldwide, the 24/7 call centre contract and the strategy for responding in any language, whether through multilingual teams, AI assisted real time translation or both.

·       AI and agentic services. Lead, with the TrustFlight Group technology team in Vancouver, the deployment of AI across Kenyon’s operations, including live reporting on risk, responder availability and readiness for both hubs, and agentic services that let Kenyon grow its capability without growing its overhead.

·       Relationships that matter. Build trusted working relationships with government agencies, emergency services, aviation authorities and clients across the region, and provide the operational insight that informs board level reporting.

Why join us

·       Work that matters. Few roles offer the chance to lead a service whose sole purpose is to bring order, care and dignity to people at the worst moment of their lives.

·       Real authority. A senior seat on the Kenyon leadership team, reporting to the Managing Director, with decision making authority during activations.

·       A sustainable model. A shared rota designed so that no Director carries standing 24/7 availability, because sound judgement depends on rest.

·       Room to build. The opportunity to shape Kenyon’s growth across the Americas and Asia Pacific, and to define how AI transforms crisis response, working alongside the technology team in the same Vancouver office.

In your cover letter, tell us about an incident you have led and what it taught you about caring for the people affected. Applications will be treated in strict confidence.

Kenyon International Emergency Services and TrustFlight are equal opportunity employers. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and will make reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process for anyone who needs them. This position is employed by TrustFlight Canada.

What you will bring

·       At least ten years in operational crisis management or emergency response, including five or more in a leadership role.

·       Experience leading large scale or complex incident responses in international environments, ideally including direct responsibility for strategic command.

·       A track record of managing contracted service providers against defined performance standards.

·       Experience working within a quality management framework in a regulated or standards led environment, and alongside board level governance.

·       The composure, judgement and compassion to lead when the stakes are highest, and the humility to put the needs of affected families first.

·       Willingness to travel internationally at short notice, including to the United States and across Asia Pacific.

·       Eligibility to live and work in Canada.

It would be a real advantage if you also have

·       Professional fluency in Mandarin, or another principal Asia Pacific language such as Japanese, Korean or Cantonese.

·       Familiarity with the ISO 22300 series, including ISO 22320, or equivalent certification experience.

·       Experience overseeing a 24/7 contact centre operation.

·       Practical experience commissioning AI or automation tools in an operational setting.

·       Knowledge of the aviation, maritime, energy or government crisis response markets in the Americas or Asia Pacific.