About MaRS

MaRS Discovery District (@MaRSDD) in Toronto is one of the worlds largest urban innovation hubs.

MaRS supports promising high-growth companies to scale their businesses globally, while tackling key societal challenges in areas such as Health, Cleantech, Finance, Transportation, AI, and others. In addition to helping start-ups launch, grow and scale, the MaRS community is dedicated to cross-disciplinary collaboration, commercialization of discoveries, and driving ideas to impact.

MaRS is the place where you can play a meaningful role in our innovation economy.

We understand qualifications on a posting can be daunting. If you're passionate about the opportunity and believe you can make a meaningful impact, we want to hear from you, even if you don't meet every listed qualification. Were always looking for great talent to join our team on planet MaRS.

We actively encourage all applicants, including equity-deserving communities, including those who identify as BIPOC, racialized, women, people with disabilities, and people with diverse gender identities, expressions and sexual orientations.

We want you to be comfortable being your most authentic self throughout our search process. Please reach out to [email protected] if theres anything we can do to make your experience more accessible and inclusive, including accommodations. Include 'Accessibility Request' in your subject line.

About the opportunity

MaRS is seeking Advisors (independent contractors) to support our highest potential companies to address critical talent needs, including hiring, organizational development, and team scaling. This role requires a strategic thinker with hands-on experience in recruitment, workforce planning, culture building, and talent retention at a scaling technology company.

The ideal Advisor will be comfortable balancing high-level strategy with tactical techniques to help companies as they scale. Advisors provide strategic guidance to executive teams and provide connections to talent, customers, and experts.

Advisors do not operate as employees of MaRS.

Scope of Work

You will work with the MaRS team to support the delivery of best-in-class programs:

• Assess client needs and plan service delivery in collaboration with the MaRS team
• Provide input into company assessments and program strategy
• Make connections to your network to talent, experts, vendors, resources, specialized advisors

The types of advisory support typically provided by People & Culture Advisors may include:

• Strategic planning for talent with rapid growth
• Scaling people & culture teams
• Executive coaching
• Employee engagement strategy
• Change management strategies
• Organizational design
• Developing talent management and total rewards programs
• Recruitment
• Compensation strategy

Engagement Structure

• You will be assigned through a Monthly Work Plan that outlines specific deliverables to be completed that month.
• Monthly deliverables will vary and are based on current needs; no minimum or guaranteed number of hours is offered.
• Advisors are engaged as independent contractors, not as employees of MaRS.
• Advisors are expected to work autonomously.

Areas of Engagement

Advisors may be engaged to contribute in one or more of the following ways, depending on the needs outlined in the monthly work plan:

• Provide individual advisory to growth and scaling ventures (typically with revenues greater than $10M) and make connections to your network for MaRS clients
• Support the creation and delivery of scalable programming and content. This might include:
  • Small group advisory sessions and other 1:many experiential learning programs
  • Peer groups and other networking activities
  • Provide insights to content for MaRS platforms like the Startup Toolkit, and contributing thought leadership through articles, speaking engagements and other forums
• Provide insights and knowledge to MaRS corporate projects including sessions for corporate partners, special venture cohorts, and more
• Support MaRS operational excellence and administration including by:
  • Providing input to shape decisions on programs, venture portfolio, and strategy decisions
  • Logging all interactions with MaRS ventures in Salesforce (or any other mechanism directed by MaRS) and providing a detailed monthly summary of work performed.
• Any additional work or activities will be mutually agreed upon in advance

Work may be completed remotely or in-person, depending on the nature of the assignment.

Allocation of work (as outlined above) communicated via workplans will be primarily focused on later stage, scaling companies.

What you bring

The following criteria defines the work experience required to support these late stage ventures.

• Experience as a senior leader in a scaling tech or science based company during revenue growth period from $10M-$100M
• Senior People & Culture leader at the VP level or above. Preference will be given to former Chief People officers at scaling ventures
• Experience as a mentor, coach or consultant to scaling companies

Advisors are not considered employees of MaRS, and no employee benefits, vacation, or statutory entitlements apply.

Advisors are responsible for their own taxes, insurance, and business expenses.

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