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 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. We’re 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 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 The Opportunity
MaRS is seeking Advisors (Volunteer Advisor, Momentum) with proven COO-level experience to guide some of Canada’s most promising late-stage technology companies. This role focuses on helping ventures navigate the complexities of scaling operations, optimizing organizational performance, and building the infrastructure needed for sustained growth.

The ideal Advisor has led a scaling technology company through the $10M–$100M+ revenue phase, with deep expertise in operational strategy, cross-functional leadership, and execution. You bring both a strategic lens and a hands-on approach, able to help founders and executive teams address critical growth challenges in areas such as operational scaling, process optimization, organizational structure, and risk management.

This is a volunteer position.

Scope of Work
You will work closely with the MaRS team to lead the successful delivery of the MaRS COO Peer-to-Peer Program, where COOs from our portfolio of late-stage companies meet to share challenges, exchange insights, and learn from one another.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Program Planning & Execution – Develop agendas, structure discussions, and ensure each session delivers meaningful value to participants.
  
• Facilitation – Guide peer discussions to keep conversations productive, relevant, and action-oriented, drawing on your own operational experience to add context and insights
  
• Needs Assessment – Collaborate with the MaRS team to understand participant needs and tailor program content accordingly.
  
• Strategic Input – Contribute to company assessments and inform the overall program strategy based on trends, challenges, and opportunities identified through peer sessions.
  
• Network Connections – Leverage your network to connect participants with relevant talent, experts, vendors, resources, and specialized advisors.

Engagement Structure

• You will have a set schedule of Peer-to-Peer sessions running monthly for the duration of the engagement
• Prep and training will be provided prior to each session
• 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 by the program team:
• Plan, facilitate, and enhance the COO Peer-to-Peer Program, ensuring monthly sessions for late-stage company COOs are well-structured, highly relevant, and deliver actionable insights.
  
• Provide one-on-one strategic advisory to ventures as a continuation of the P2P program where applicable.
  
• Support MaRS operational excellence by documenting activities, logging interactions in Salesforce, and providing monthly reports.
• 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) 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 COO, VP Operations, or equivalent senior operational leader in a scaling technology or science-based company during the $10M–$100M+ growth stage.
  
• Proven track record in operational scaling, process improvement, and strategic planning at the enterprise level.
  
• Experience as a mentor, coach or consultant to scaling companies
  

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