Our people

Tara Doyle

Tara is the Chair of World Vision Ireland, having served on the board since 2008.  She is also a member of the World Vision International board and its People Committee.

She is a partner in the Asset Management and Investment Funds Department at Matheson. She became head of Matheson’s Asset Management and Investment Funds Department in 2016. Tara was the first female head of an Irish asset management practice and in 2016 and 2017 was named Europe’s Best in Investment Funds at the Euromoney Women in Business Law Awards, the first Irish woman to receive that award. Tara was included in The Hedge Fund Journal’s 50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds in 2017.

Tara is a member of Matheson’s Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee. She is also a member of the IFSC Funds Group established by the Department of An Taoiseach to consider and advise on legislative and other changes which are necessary or desirable to facilitate the continued growth of the Irish investment funds industry.

Johnny O'Rourke

Johnny O'Rourke joined the World Vision Ireland Board in 2020.

Johnny is passionate about creating value driven organisations focused on harnessing technology to drive innovation in the public, private and charitable sectors. Johnny has expertise in governance structures, and adds value at the Board level on issues related to HR, Organisation Design and Performance and Quality Improvement Planning. Specifically, his area of expertise is risk management. He is Director of Operations for Home Again.

Johnny is Chair of the WVIRE Governance and Selection Committee.

Frank Dunne

Daniela (Dana) Buzducea

For more than 25 years Dana has worked to change the systems that keep some of the world’s most vulnerable children living in degrading, de-humanising conditions. Graduating in the first generation of Romanian social workers after the fall of the communist regime, Dana started her career working with HIV-infected children, and at-risk families to prevent child abuse, neglect and abandonment to institutions.

She led various national coalitions of NGOs working on children’s rights, the protection of people with disabilities and poverty reduction, and had served in several international consultations on improving the national systems for human capital development. In the nine years Dana worked with USAID in Romania, she contributed to de-institutionalisation, the development of community-based services, and mainstreaming education solutions for vulnerable children. As a National Director of World Vision Romania, Dana focused on increasing World Vision's visibility, programme quality and sustainability. In her current role as World Vision International’s Partnership Leader for Advocacy and External Engagement, Dana leads the organisation’s work to advocate for an end to violence against children, for strong child sensitive social protection policies and investments by governments and multilaterals, and towards the fulfilment of the SDGs and the Convention on the Rights of Children.

Dana is a passionate advocate for children’s right to participate, and to help shift the lack of political will or leadership. “It is our duty as adults to keep children high on the political and the public agenda so that no child is left behind in the development race, assuming full responsibility for our legacy to the next generation.”

Dana serves on the WVIRE Governance and Selection Committee. 

Maria Flannery

Maria is a Partner in KPMG’s Financial Services Audit group and a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland. She has experience providing audit and advisory services to asset managers and investment vehicles in multiple jurisdictions, and also assists clients in risk, governance & regulatory reviews. Prior to joining KPMG, Maria spent a number of months working within the finance team of a humanitarian agency based in Dublin, and she also completed a secondment to the internal audit department of an Irish aid agency in Haiti. She is a member of KPMG Ireland’s Inclusion Diversity & Equity committee.

Maria has a BSc in Applied Computational Linguistics and a Professional Diploma in Accounting, both from Dublin City University. Maria joined the Board of World Vision Ireland in 2022, and also serves as a member of the FARCOM, WVIRE Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.

Barry Dunning

Barry is Head of External Communications at Ernst & Young Ireland and is a strategic communications, advisory, and public affairs professional with over 15 years of experience in the corporate, political and not-for-profit sectors. This includes over two years working as Chief of Operations at a not-for-profit providing palliative care to children in Jakarta, Indonesia.

He holds an MBA from Smurfit Graduate Business School as well as a MA in Politics and International Relations from University College Dublin.

Barry joined the World Vision Ireland Board in March 2023. He serves on the WVIRE Ministry Committee. 

Maria Jansson

Maria retired as Church of Ireland Dean of Waterford in 2021, having previously ministered in Howth, Galway and Wexford.

Prior to ordained ministry she was a secondary school teacher, an adult religious educator and taught in University College Dublin and Mater Dei Institute, which is now part of Dublin City University, where she was especially interested in the development of religious literacy skills.

She has led retreats, given conference papers and has published in a range of theological journals and newspapers.

She has served on a diverse range of NGO boards - Christian Media Trust; the Hugh Gore Institute, which provides independent living accommodation for older persons in Waterford; and as Chair of the Wexford Rape Crisis Centre.

She is presently researching ethical governance and religion.

Maria serves on the WVIRE Ministry Committee. 

David Eastment

David was born in Dublin. He spent 42 years in the public service - 9 years in the health sector and the remainder in a semi-state commercial organisation. Over the course of his career he has worked in the areas of finance, HR, IT, project management, and line management.

He has been involved with the voluntary sector as a volunteer worker and volunteer board director over a period of 35 years. Most of this was with the credit union movement and community groups.

David joined the World Vision Ireland Board in 2023. He serves on the FARCOM, WVIRE Finance, Audit and Risk Committee. 

Robert Flood

Robert has over 20 years’ experience in technology, insurance & management consulting and currently works as an Account Director for a global technology organisation, serving clients in Ireland & the UK.

He holds a BBS degree from Trinity College, an MBS from the Michael Smurfit School of Business, UCD and a Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors. He is a member of the Institute of Directors in Ireland.

Robert Flood joined the Board of World Vision Ireland in 2023. He serves on the WVIRE Governance and Selection Committee. 

Robert Saunders

Robert served on the board of World Vision Ireland (WVI) from 2014-2023. During this tenure Robert was chair of the Ministry Strategy and Resource Development Committee and acted as vice chair to the main board.

Robert is the Global Commercial director of Perigord Life Science Solutions and has held this position since 2018. With a varied career spanning over 30 years Robert brings a wealth of international commercial and organisational management experience to WVI. With a passion for helping those others less fortunate and a belief that all people no matter of race religion or gender must be given the opportunity to live life to the fullest, Roberts Modus operandi is ‘Integrity Without Compromise’.

Lye Ogunsanya

Lye is a US State Dept IVLP Alumni, a former Mobile telecoms executive and a UNICEF Champion for children Awardee. He is a hands-on advocate for building the change needed in the dual-technology space and has extensive experience in setting up of philanthropic change driven programs in the EMEA. He was awarded the IUSA Emerging Leader 2022 for his contributions to society and Irish USA relations. Lye is currently cofounder at FieldLab+ and Director of Innovation at Offset Fashion where he is harnessing the power of AI for circularity and female-led decarbonisation efforts. He is EX-Sony Ericsson, LG Electronics, Smart Dublin and was Founding CEO at Didean where he successfully contributed to the Irish government’s accommodation policy and services within the Refugee/International Protection applicant service sector in Ireland.

Prior to Dídean, Lye was Portfolio Manager EMEA at a Private family owned philanthropy where he led change driven humanitarian innovation programs in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Colombia and the Mediterranean. The programmes disrupted the Education in Emergency policy and sector while contributing to precedents for the global UN adolescent education programme ‘Generation Unlimited’ with a specific focus on frontiers of innovation. Lye’s collaborative work with UNICEF included developing humanitarian innovation programs for families, youth and children in a number of refugee camps along the Syria/Lebanon border and the Syrian/Jordan border. The programmes involved health, education and youth/adolescent development. His work in Jordan won UNICEF’s Champion for Children Award in 2018 due to the highly innovative, diverse and forward-thinking

programme strategy.

In the Mediterranean (Libya-Italy) he oversaw an aerial innovation intervention program. This aviation intervention resulted in hundreds of lives being saved at sea. In Malawi Lye worked, in partnership with UNICEF, on the negotiations and capital investment funding for Africa’s First Humanitarian Drone and Data Academy. The goal of the Academy is to prepare and up-skill graduates to capitalise on the emerging mobility/smart workforce sector and reduce the migration flow at source. He is a Board Member of the prestigious Temple Bar Galleries+Studio Dublin, Headfort school Meath and currently serves on the board of the Ireland United States Alumni Association (IUSA).

Ellen Butler

Ellen Butler has been a youth advocate for over 10 years, believing young people should be meaningfully included and consulted in decisions that affect them.

She's also passionate about addressing the climate emergency in an urgent and constructive way. She believes real climate action requires accountability, transparency and community engagement. It also needs the vibrancy, creativity and imagination of young people.

Ellen has been a youth leader with the SAUTI-Youth project - a collaboration between World Vision Ireland and Tanzania and Youth Work Ireland Galway - since its inception in 2020. 

Professionally, Ellen's background is in communications and broadcasting. She's a radio news anchor and reporter with Bauer Media Ireland, the parent company of Newstalk and Today FM, among other stations. She sees her work as a public service, making people aware of what's happening in their local, national and global communities, and holding people to account. She brings her insight into the world of communications to her role on the World Vision board.

Ellen grew up on an organic farm in County Roscommon, and is now based in Dublin city.

Our values

• We are Christian
• We are committed to the poor
• We value people
• We are stewards  
• We are partners
• We are responsive

World Vision Ireland is a child-focused overseas aid agency. We are part of World Vision International, the largest privately funded NGO in the world. With the help of over 4.7 million supporters worldwide we deliver clean water, education, healthcare and sanitation to over 120 million children in nearly 100 countries worldwide.

We work with people of all cultures, faiths and genders to achieve transformation. We do this through development, relief, advocacy and always through collaboration.

Our strategy is directly working to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 6 crucial areas; mother and child health, economic empowerment, water, education, child protection, and food and agriculture. 

Gillian Barnett

Gillian joined World Vision Ireland as Chief Executive in May 2021. She has nearly 20 years of experience in the charity sector, with a specialism in fundraising and communications. Throughout her career, she has significantly grown income in a number of small, medium and large organisations, to fund vital work. This has involved developing meaningful partnerships with supporters, and ensuring maximum impact for beneficiaries. She has a keen interest in supporting vulnerable children,  and has held a number of voluntary roles including counselling, and working with children with physical and learning difficulties.

Prior to joining World Vision Ireland, Gillian was at World Vision UK and has held a number of senior positions at the MS Society, ChildLine and Rennie Grove Hospice Care. She has a BA hons degree, and holds the Professional Diploma in Marketing.

Maurice Sadlier

Maurice Sadlier is World Vision Ireland’s Programmes and Policy Director and has overall responsibility of WV’s development and humanitarian Programmes. He is a development specialist with a background in programme management including climate justice, health, nutrition and livelihoods programmes. Maurice has worked at senior management level for the last 13 years managing both Non-governmental and government development programmes in Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania.

Prior to joining World Vision Ireland, he was Deputy Director of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Studies from NUIG and a Masters in Development Studies from UCD. 

Dean Parkinson

Dean Parkinson is World Vision Ireland’s Director of Finance & Operations.  He was appointed into this role in April 2023.  He joined World Vision Ireland in December 2018 as the Finance Manager and in June 2022, was promoted to Finance Director.  He is a Finance enthusiast with a background in developing strong business partnerships, together with budgeting and forecasting to ensure maximum impact for shareholders and attention to detail.

Prior to joining World Vision Ireland, he held numerous Finance roles across several countries, including Ireland, Australia and the UK.  As a CPA Qualified Accountant, he has gained his Finance and Operational experience within the IT, Retail and Sporting sectors.

Andrew Morley, President of World Vision International

Andrew became President in early 2019, but had been working for World Vision for many years before.

He joined World Vision after leading and building successful international organisations. He has worked for brands such as Google Mobility Motorola Mobile, Sky Television, Harrods Group and Ford Motor Company and was the CEO of Clear Channel UK. 

Andrew has a BA Honours degrees in Marketing and Theology. He is a member of a long-distance cycling team and enjoys running.

Andrew is married to Vanessa and they have two teenage children, Lewis and James.