Associate, Corporate Innovation (1-yr contract)

About MaRS

MaRS Discovery District (@MaRSDD) in Toronto is one of the world’s 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 job posting can be daunting. If you're passionate about the role and believe you can make a meaningful impact, we want to hear from you, even if you don't meet every listed qualification. We’re always looking for great talent to join our team on planet MaRS.

We actively encourage all candidates, 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 recruitment process. Please reach out to careers@marsdd.com if there’s anything we can do to make your experience more accessible and inclusive, including accommodations. Include 'Accessibility Request' in your subject line.

About Ventures & Ecosystems

This role resides within the V&E group at MaRS. V&E works with over 1400 innovation-driven science and technology startups. V&E helps entrepreneurs commercialize innovations with high business growth potential in Canada and globally by facilitating access to the customer, talent, funding, marketing and stakeholder connections required to successfully scale their business.

About The Position

MaRS runs corporate innovation programming to introduce companies to innovative solutions and potential venture companies that can solve problems for them in new ways. MaRS is looking for an Associate to assist in running a theme-based, time-bound cohort program that provides accelerated support for 5-12 partners in a community format, specifically focused on the adoption of innovative solutions through assessment, planning, and implementation phases. The initial focus will be in deploying clean technologies in the real estate / built environment sector.

This is a 1-year contract.

Key Responsibilities

1. Delivery (80%)
   
   Provide support to specific theme-based, time-bound programming that provides accelerated support for 5-12 partners in a community format to adopt innovative solutions. Support will be provided to the Program Lead, Cohort Lead, and Project & Research Lead as required to deliver the cohort program. Support can include:
   
   
   • Conduct primary and secondary research, and summarizing research findings during the cohort research phase
   • Assist in recruitment and onboarding of participants to the cohort
   • Schedule and coordinate cohort activities (e.g. workshops, expert speakers, events) with participants
   • Design and distribute external program communications, liaising with internal and external groups to gather relevant materials and proactively aggregate content of interest to corporate partners
   • Provide administrative and logistical support for the cohort and for the program
   • Assist with internal and external reporting activities on cohort delivery and impact
   • Coordinate with other teams in MaRS (e.g. communications, real estate, venture engagement team, etc.) for the effective delivery of the cohort program
2. Program administration (20%)
   
   Support ongoing account management and related activities to ensure that our partners are receiving high quality, high value service within their Corporate Innovation partnership. This includes, attending and supporting partner engagement in meetings and engagements, developing decks, among other tasks.
   
   Ensure the organization, quality, and standards are maintained for client-facing deliverables by capturing continuous improvements and utilizing project management and communication tools.
   
   Work collaboratively across the program to manage timelines and the execution of deliverables through the use of a program management framework.
   
   Monitor and document various program metrics (e.g. delivery and impact) using data tracking tools, ensuring sufficient and timely data for various reporting requirements.
   
   

Qualifications

• Minimum undergraduate degree in Arts, Science, Business, or equivalent
• An undergraduate degree or equivalent with a focus in environmental science, climate, or infrastructure an asset
• 1+ years of relevant business experience in client facing roles related to program / project delivery
• Experience or interest in areas such as innovation, climate, cleantech, the built environment, or real estate is a plus
• Experience in project management and related skill sets
• Strong analytical and organizational skills
• Professional demeanor with the ability to represent the organization confidently in all situations
• Comfortable and capable in research, content development, and program management
• Strong skills in synthesizing ideas—able to integrate multiple information sources, prioritize, and develop a cohesive, integrated strategy
• Proficient in Salesforce, Excel, Asana, MS Word, and PowerPoint

Applications will close at 5pm EDT on March 11, 2025.

Applicants must be legally eligible to work in Canada and reside in Ontario.

Salary Range: $50,000 - $62,000, extended healthcare benefits, lifestyle spending account, and paid time-off.