Operations & Strategic Initiatives Lead
About The Position
Supporting the Office of the COO, the Operations & Strategic Initiatives Lead is responsible for helping the Chief Operating Officer drive execution, alignment, and accountability across priority operational and business transformation initiatives. The role will initially focus on SOCAN’s Spanish Point Business Stabilization Plan and related 2026 roadmap activities, while also supporting other COO-led priorities that require strong coordination, planning, follow-through, and cross-functional execution. Acting as an execution partner to the COO, this role brings structure, discipline, and momentum to complex workstreams. The incumbent will maintain project plans, track commitments, facilitate working sessions, clarify issues, manage action items, identify risks, and ensure that decisions and next steps are clearly documented and followed through. Success in this role requires strong project management, exceptional organization, clear communication, and the ability to influence without formal authority. The successful candidate will be comfortable working with senior leaders and subject matter experts, asking direct questions, surfacing ambiguity, and helping teams move from discussion to decision to action. This is an ideal opportunity for a highly organized and influential project professional who enjoys bringing structure to complexity and helping teams deliver results in a fast-paced environment.
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience in project management, business operations, strategic initiatives, transformation, PMO, or an executive office support role.
- Demonstrated experience coordinating complex, cross-functional initiatives with senior stakeholders.
- Experience supporting technology implementation, business stabilization, process improvement, or operational transformation initiatives is strongly preferred.
- Experience working with executives or senior leaders in a fast-paced environment is an asset.
- Project management certification is an asset, but practical execution experience is more important.
- An execution driver who keeps work moving.
- Highly organized with strong planning, tracking, documentation, and follow-through habits.
- Clear and direct in communication, with the ability to simplify complexity.
- Comfortable with ambiguity and able to turn unclear issues into structured options and next steps.
- Confident with senior stakeholders and able to influence without formal authority.
- Practical and outcome-focused, with a bias for action and problem-solving.
- Disciplined about accountability, ensuring commitments have owners, timelines, and follow-up.
Nice To Haves
- French is an asset
Responsibilities
- Support the COO in translating priority initiatives into clear workplans, owners, timelines, milestones, and deliverables.
- Coordinate execution across multiple operational, technology, and business workstreams.
- Maintain visibility into progress, dependencies, risks, and decisions across the COO’s priority portfolio.
- Help ensure leadership attention is focused on the highest-impact issues, decisions, and delivery risks.
- Drive coordination and follow-through for the Spanish Point Business Stabilization Plan and related 2026 roadmap activities.
- Maintain project plans, decision logs, issue logs, risk registers, and action trackers.
- Coordinate with business leads, technology partners, external vendors, and subject matter experts to support timely execution.
- Identify unresolved issues, unclear requirements, decision gaps, and delivery risks requiring leadership attention.
- Design and facilitate working sessions that move stakeholders from discussion to clear decisions and actions.
- Prepare agendas, briefing materials, status updates, and decision-support notes for COO-led meetings.
- Capture decisions, actions, owners, timelines, risks, and unresolved questions.
- Follow up consistently to ensure commitments are completed and barriers are escalated.
- Build trusted working relationships with senior leaders, subject matter experts, business teams, technology teams, and external partners.
- Influence stakeholders to clarify requirements, define issues, resolve ambiguity, and commit to next steps.
- Challenge assumptions and surface concerns in a constructive, solutions-focused way.
- Help create alignment where priorities, ownership, or decisions are unclear.
- Prepare concise updates for the COO and other leaders on progress, risks, decisions, and upcoming priorities.
- Identify risks, blockers, competing priorities, and resource constraints that may affect delivery.
- Recommend practical escalation paths, mitigation options, and decision points.
- Maintain clear documentation that supports transparency, accountability, and continuity.
Benefits
- 35-hour workweek schedule (possible flexible work options i.e., 4-day work week (position based)
- Access to SOCAN fitness facility – Include only for positions in Toronto
- Inclusive and collaborative working environment
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
