Senior Associate, Advisory Services

MaRS Discovery District•Toronto, ON

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

This is a permanent, full-time position. Reporting to the Director of Startup Services, the Senior Associate, Advisory Services owns the end-to-end execution, administration, and strategic growth of the MaRS Volunteer Advisor program and the administrative operations for all Contracted Advisors, Facilitators and Specialists at MaRS. This role is the primary lead for the technical infrastructure, data integrity, and relationship management strategies that enable MaRS to scale its advisory offerings to ventures. The Senior Associate acts as a key bridge between external advisors and internal teams, ensuring operational excellence and high-value engagement across the ecosystem. The Senior Associate proactively identifies gaps in current advisory offerings and designs structured approaches to solve them, acts as an internal champion for operational excellence, pushing the boundaries of how MaRS uses technology to deliver client value, and constantly iterates on existing processes to transform manual tasks into scalable digital workflows.

Requirements

3+ years of experience in business operations, program management, or stakeholder relations in a fast-paced environment (Startup/Innovation sector experience preferred)
Proven track record of managing projects with limited guidance and taking full ownership of program outcomes
Expert-level knowledge of Salesforce/CRM and Calendly; advanced capabilities in GSuite/MS Office (specifically advanced Excel/Google Sheets)
Exceptional ability to foster and maintain a community of high-profile volunteers or donors
Excellent judgment in setting priorities, anticipating potential roadblocks, and executing structured solutions
Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence internal and external stakeholders
Applicants must be legally eligible to work in Canada, reside in Ontario and be willing to work out of our Toronto office (101 College Street) a minimum of 3 days per week.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in Business or related field
Process improvement experience
AI data integration and analysis
Data visualization

Responsibilities

Independently manages the recruitment, onboarding, and lifecycle of the Volunteer Advisor community
Designs and implements engagement strategies to foster a positive, active, and high-performing community of advisors
Develops and maintains best-in-class tools and resources to empower advisors and ventures during their engagements
Maintains and tracks advisors’ areas of expertise, preferences and availabilities and is able to match with organizational needs
Ensures advisors and ventures are aware of tools and resources available to enable best-in-class advisory
Owns the administration and optimization of relationship management systems, including Salesforce CRM and Calendly
Designs and implements automated workflows to streamline program delivery and reduce manual administrative overhead
Leads the evaluation and rollout of new software solutions and technical tools for the Advisory team in collaboration with MaRS IT
Standardizes onboarding and training materials for all internal and external users of advisory tools
Designs and implements campaigns to drive awareness to advisory bench strength both internally and externally
Processes contracts, NDAs, conflict of interest attestations and manages monthly planning and advisory assignment process
Tracks and processes on time monthly invoices
Defines and tracks key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure program success and advisor impact
Creates dashboards and data reports for senior leadership to drive continuous program improvement and scaling
Maintains high-integrity records across MaRS teams to ensure transparency and seamless reporting