Manager, Corporate Innovation

MaRS Discovery District•Toronto, ON

2d•CA$85,000 - CA$93,000•Hybrid

About The Position

This is a permanent, full-time position, and a key member of the MaRS Corporate Innovation team. A Manager of Corporate Innovation is responsible for leading the delivery of a range of fee-for-service engagements for MaRS’ partners across a variety of industries, located in Canada and internationally. These external engagements are aimed at supporting partners with adoption of innovation for inclusive growth – project examples include workshops, roundtables, innovation challenges, and technology adoption projects. These projects often involve additional engagement with stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem. This person is also responsible for supporting business development activities for acquisition or renewal of partners. It is expected for this role to establish a deep relationship with the client, proactively identifying issues and developing solutions, and to act as a leader for direct and indirect reports.

Requirements

3+ years of previous project or client management delivery experience
Able to put yourself in the client’s shoes to understand their challenges and working collaboratively with them as a partner to help them achieve the incremental milestones on their innovation journey
Exceptional verbal and written skills to develop and deliver narratives for engagement deliveries, deepen relationship with clients and ecosystem engagement
Comfortable working with ambiguity, and be resourceful in developing and delivering solutions for the client while balancing multiple projects simultaneously
Detail-oriented and mindset of continuous improvement to develop and deliver client engagements
High degree of comfort with technical topics, specifically with regards to the electricity system, as well as business concepts and issues
Able to think holistically about client problems and solutions, identify and connect things that the clients may have missed, apply learnings and insights across clients
Ability to quickly learn new industries and areas of focus
Ability to form deep client relationships, understand client’s problems, identify and develop solutions to meet and exceed client’s needs, close sales engagements that are often in the range of $100k - $500k
Ability to gain the trust of clients (senior leadership) and serve as a credible resource to offer advice on the client’s innovation journey
Self-motivated to keep up-to-date with the latest trends in the sector and open-mindset to continuously learn and apply insights from across sectors
Team player and leader – develop and mentor team members
Able to work collaboratively within and across departments to share information and collaboratively develop new solutions
Passionate about innovation, technology, the energy sector, and building the MaRS’ Partnerships revenue stream to support MaRS’ mission of helping innovators create a better world

Nice To Haves

Graduate degree in related field
5+ years of professional work experience in a client facing role
Consulting experience across multiple industries

Responsibilities

Lead, advise or work on a project team to successfully deliver partner engagements leveraging program management and service delivery best practices in order to deliver outcomes that exceed client expectations, while ensuring the overall project is on budget and on time
Lead, advise or conduct research to draw commercially relevant insights from emerging sector trends, technologies, investment opportunities, and business models, and tailor to specific client needs.
Activities include overall management of a program or project contract, delivery planning, tracking project schedules/ execution progress, day-to-day direction of client projects, and developing high quality reports, presentations, evaluations, and other client-facing communications materials
Additional activities include resource management; ensuring that direct and/or indirect reports are advised and supported throughout project work, providing mentorship and identifying growth opportunities within projects and beyond
Lead the development of research reports, policy papers, issue briefs, presentations and other products that would be used to support client engagements, business development, and internal strategy and thought leadership
Actively manage and strengthen current client and stakeholder relationships with a view towards contributing to tangible innovation adoption and other specific project objectives, and identification and closing of follow-on partnership and advisory business opportunities
Strengthen internal stakeholder relationships between different teams and departments at MaRS (i.e. Communications, Legal, Venture Services etc.), and act as a leader and advisor to colleagues, including direct and indirect reports
Provide mentorship, identify and enable growth opportunities for team members
Identify and provide input on growth strategy for the Corporate Innovation team
Share project learnings and identify opportunities to collaborate with teams to continuously improve and enhance projects undertaken at MaRS
Create value for ventures by identifying opportunities for engagement during client deliveries, making warm introductions, and sharing market insights
Support with preparation of proposals and contracts, scope projects with clients, contribute to extending work and developing new business
From time to time, take the lead role in design, development and delivery of Innovation Challenges when working with MaRS’s partner organizations