Director, Learning Design & Development

Isaac Operations • Toronto, ON

32d • CA$165,000 - CA$195,000

About The Position

Isaac is scaling fast, and we are building a Learning & Development function that can scale with us. One that is deliberate, distinctive, and grounded in who we are. We are looking for a Director, Learning Design & Development to come in and shape how we develop our people. This is a build role, not a maintain role. You will own the end-to-end arc of how people learn at Isaac, from what we teach, to how we teach it, to how our leaders develop their teams day-to-day. You will be the senior leader on how we develop our people at Isaac.

Requirements

• Deep expertise in organizational learning. You understand how adults actually develop in professional services and how to design for it, not from a generalist L&D playbook
• Formal grounding in learning science, instructional design, organizational psychology, adult development, or a related discipline. Either through academic training or through significant practitioner work that put you in regular contact with the underlying research
• Significant experience leading the learning and development function inside a serious organization (corporate, professional services, or a respected scale-up) at a level that owned the design of how people develop, not just the delivery of training
• A track record of leadership development programs you’ve designed that demonstrably shifted behaviour, with evidence you can talk to (manager feedback signals, leader effectiveness measures, retention outcomes, or equivalent)
• Experience operating alongside senior business leaders as a peer, not a service provider. Credible in strategic conversations and used to being challenged on your recommendations
• Hands-on experience building from scratch. Competency frameworks, faculty models, measurement approaches, content libraries. You have artefacts you can show, not just programs you’ve run
• Practical experience with the full blended-learning palette (live training, self-paced digital, coaching, mentoring, on-the-job learning) and a point of view on how they fit together
• A formed view on AI in development, ideally with a project or two you’ve shipped that tested it in practice
• Strong written and verbal communication. Your decks, your frameworks, and your sessions all carry the same high standard

Nice To Haves

• A builder, not a maintainer. Energized by shaping something distinctive from the ground up, not running someone else’s playbook
• A bridge between the business and the people side. You read what the business actually needs, you read what people want to develop, and you find solutions that serve both
• Develops others as a default. You coach as much as you direct, you raise the bar for the people around you, and you make other people better at their jobs
• Opinionated about how learning works. You hold strong views on what good development looks like and you’re willing to defend them, including with senior people who disagree
• Senior in presence. You belong in rooms with Partners and VPs, and you bring conviction without ego
• Comfortable being the only senior learning person in the room and equally comfortable working in partnership with peers who own adjacent scopes
• Curious and intellectually restless. You read, you think, you bring fresh ideas into the room without chasing every trend
• Patient with people, impatient with mediocre work. You don’t confuse being kind with lowering the bar
• Pragmatic. You can hold an ambitious vision and ship a useful first version of it in the same week
• You’re awesome. You bring energy, curiosity, and personality to your work. We work hard, celebrate wins, and enjoy spending time together

Responsibilities

• Own what great learning looks like at Isaac across the full breadth of how people develop. Live training, self-paced content, coaching and mentoring, on-the-job learning, and how they fit together
• Make development and learning at Isaac feel special. Not just effective, but a defining part of our culture, the reason people stay, the reason candidates want to join, and a differentiator our clients experience through the quality of our people
• Design an integrated development ecosystem where on-the-job experiences, formal learning, coaching, mentoring, talent assessments, and career development work together to accelerate growth.
• Lead the design and build of Isaac’s Leadership Academy, a multi-level program supported by external partners that advances people’s leadership skills from early career through to Partner, with a clear, credible development arc at every level to meet business needs today and build the capabilities we'll need in the future
• Own the technical operational training by level from induction (new consultant training) through to Principal and evolve the content as our work and sectors evolve
• Own the manager capability agenda. Define explicit expectations for development conversations, feedback, and how managers grow the people on their teams, and embed those expectations in how leaders operate
• Shape the leadership capability definition and the leadership metrics that signal whether the system is working
• Partner with senior leaders to translate our existing competency framework into behaviour descriptors, learning experiences, and development reps that actually shift how people show up
• Bring an external, evidence-based view of organizational learning into Isaac. What’s working in serious learning organizations, what’s noise, and what fits our culture
• Explore and introduce innovative approaches to learning, leveraging new technologies, AI, and emerging practices to create engaging development experiences that set Isaac apart.
• Engage external partners and academic faculty where they raise the ceiling, and build internal facilitation capability over time so leaders are teaching leaders
• Lead and develop the L&D team. Build a strong group around you across systems and execution, leadership development specialists, and FO Sector Dev Leads, and raise the bar for the whole function
• Operate as a senior member of the People Team leadership group. Voice in strategy, partner to the VP P&C, and contributor to how Isaac scales its people overall

Benefits

• Future fund bonus of 2–4% on top of your compensation
• 25 days paid vacation
• Meaningful work that makes a strong impact for our clients
• Opportunity for rapid learning and career growth with our training and development programs
• Work with amazing people who genuinely love to spend time together
• Fun company sponsored activities & trips
• Comprehensive benefits package 100% covered by Isaac

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed