**About MaRS**
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.
• *About the opportunity**
• *This is an independent contractor opportunity.**
• *Key Responsibilities**
- Through individual advisory and community events provide guidance on topics relating to growing ventures like:
- Talent Planning: Develop talent strategies aligned with business goals, including workforce planning, workforce development, and organizational structure optimization.
- Employer Brand: Assist leadership teams in building a magnetic employer value proposition for existing and prospective employees.
- Employee Relations: Guidance on various employee relations matters, including workforce transitions, performance management, and workplace disputes, with a focus on ethical governance.
- Culture: Work with companies to define, nurture, and scale company culture as they grow. Advise on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to ensure inclusive hiring practices and workplace environments.
- Compensation: Assist in developing competitive compensation packages, including equity structuring, benchmarking, and employee benefits.
- Performance Management: Provide recommendations for retaining top talent through career development pathways, performance management frameworks, and inform on succession planning
- Leadership Coaching: Serve as a coach and advisor to CEOs and HR leaders on leadership development
- HR & Operational Guidance: Provide tools, resources, and tactical guidance on HR-related functions, including onboarding processes, employee handbooks, and compliance with labor laws
- 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, customers, experts, and funding
- Document your work in the MaRS CRM, and follow MaRS policies and processes to enable effective program management.
• *Qualifications**
- Proven experience in such roles as a Head of People with early to medium-late stage startups.
- Alternatively, you are a deep technical specialist on topics like recruitment, compensation, etc and have a strong track record of helping multiple startups optimise their marketing machine.
- Experience in a Head of People role with companies at the following stages:
- preparing for and absorbing a Series A
- venture-backed company that grew rapidly from $5M to $20M revenue and beyond (or equivalent capital raised for a deeptech/health/cleantech company)
- Deep understanding of recruitment, workforce planning, and organizational design for scaling businesses.
- Strong knowledge of compensation frameworks, including equity and startup-specific benefits.
- Excellent interpersonal and coaching skills, with a track record of working effectively with CEOs and leadership teams.
- Ability to balance strategic thinking with tactical execution and manage multiple priorities at once.
- Familiarity with DEI best practices and experience integrating them into talent strategies.
- Experience working with technology companies in impact areas of climate, health and applied AI is highly desirable.
- Highly developed analytical and interpretive skills, conceptual thinker, able to solve complex problems
- Demonstrated passion for building businesses
- Personal accountability and commitment to achieving and exceeding goals and objectives
- Detailed knowledge of commercial practices for high growth businesses.
- Familiar with the “language” and terminology of industry, finance, government, and the academic community
LI-MDD
