Director, ElevateIP, Innovate Calgary

Position Description

Innovate Calgary
CALGARY, ALBERTA

Primary Purpose of the Position

The University of Calgary, Economic Development Lethbridge, Innovate Calgary, and other partners across the province seek to increase the quality of the intellectual property that powers Alberta’s start-up ecosystem. To do this, we aim to create programs and partnerships that build access to IP expertise across the province.

This position will receive direction from Innovate Calgary’s partner Economic Development Lethbridge to ensure that the programs have a provincial impact to the benefit of all Albertans, including specific historically excluded groups such as Indigenous communities, women, newcomers, and rural/remote entrepreneurs. The role offers an incredible opportunity to work with a diverse group of promising new ventures, talented individuals, and ecosystem supporters. This position reports directly to project co-sponsor EDL VP Entrepreneurship & Innovation, develops and implements plans, initiates and coordinates meetings related to the project, and monitors and reviews all project activities.

Elevate IP, funded by ISED, will help Business Accelerators and Incubators (BAIs) provide the tools Canadian startups need to understand, strategically manage and leverage their IP. This includes:

• Facilitating IP supports by BAIs to startups in Canada;
• Increasing IP capacity in the BAI ecosystem in Canada through IP education for BAIs and their client startups; and
• Enabling BAIs to provide targeted supports that are customized to the unique requirements of each startup to help them secure and maintain IP rights.
• Lead a pan-provincial group to ensure IP support for all startups

Qualifications/Expertise

• Post-secondary credential or equivalent time/education in management/business-related environments
• Demonstrated knowledge of and relationships in the Intellectual Property ecosystem
• Demonstrated knowledge of and experience in the Alberta entrepreneurial ecosystem from ideation to Scale Up & Growth
• Experience managing federally funded projects across a large geographic region
• Demonstrated ability to assume high levels of responsibility and independently carry projects from initiation, planning, implementation, monitoring, controlling completion, and closure
• Commitment to working with shared project leadership and cross-functional teams
• Proven relationship-building skills and a strong ability to motivate others to meet goals and objectives
• Experience with Salesforce or similar CRM
• Demonstrated report writing skills with a strong ability to extrapolate metric outcomes
• Thrives in a collaborative environment with a demonstrated ability and experience working with diverse groups and organizations such as Indigenous, Women, Newcomers, and rural/remote
   

Accountabilities, Tasks, and Duties 

Project Management:

• Responsible for project management, including budget development and management, staffing and program delivery, and outcomes measurement and reporting
• Act as quality control to ensure meeting expectations of the funding agreement
• Provide a single point of communication and accountability
• Activity and resource planning
• Create workback schedule with milestones, execute and engage team to implement
• Analyze, report and manage project risks
• Provide monthly progress reports
• Establish a metric tracking system aligned with the funding agreement
• Complete the project within the funding period parameters

Stakeholder Engagement:

• Establish and grow open and reciprocal relationships, understanding the importance of leveraging others in the entrepreneurial and IP ecosystems to achieve the project objectives successfully.
• Oversee ecosystem service providers and partners to deliver services and programs to entrepreneurs and organizations across Alberta as per the funding agreement.
• Engage with entrepreneurs to ensure programs and services are meeting expectations.

Team Management:

• Assemble and lead the project team and assign appropriate authority and responsibility to empower the achievement of project outcomes
• Create or contribute to an environment that inspires potential, trust, learning, and excellence while delivering results
• Ensure the team has a good grasp of the vision of the project and has the tools to deliver program objectives
• Manage remote work environment

Financial Management:

• Monitor and review monthly expenditures and attendance metrics for alignment with budget and oversee expense submissions and reporting as per funding agreement.
• Manage costs and time with monthly cash flow reports and projections.
• Ensure all transactions are approved with designated account allocations and within budget.

About the Project Partners

About Economic Development Lethbridge (EDL): EDL is an independent not-for-profit organization governed by a 31-member Board of Directors. The organization's mandate is to strengthen and develop the Lethbridge economy by initiating and facilitating proactive economic development strategies and promoting Lethbridge as an excellent place to live, learn, invest, visit and do business. EDL owns and operates Tecconnect, a technology business incubator designed to attract, incubate and develop technology companies through the commercialization of products and services.

• EDL is a founding member of the Regional Innovation Network of Southern Alberta (RINSA), a collaborative partnership with Lethbridge College, the University of Lethbridge, NRC-IRAP, Alberta Innovates, Community Futures – Lethbridge Region, SouthGrow Regional Initiative, Alberta Southwest Regional Alliance, Blood Tribe Economic Development, Piikani Resource Development, Blackfoot Tribal Council – Entrepreneur Program, and The BIPOC Foundation. RINSA collaboratively assists start-ups and SME’s to successfully navigate the entrepreneurial journey from ideation to commercialization, scale up, and growth.
• EDL also directly oversees the delivery of other entrepreneurial programs, such as the Women Entrepreneurs in STEM (WESTEM) Program, which was a three-year project (2019 -2022) funded through the Western Economic Diversification -Women Entrepreneurship Strategy program to create a STEM-centric community in southern Alberta by offering training, networking, mentorship and access to current and emerging technologies. It focused on advancing gender equality in the STEM sector by supporting under-represented women in rural and remote regions. This program received bridge funding (to April 2023) from Alberta Innovates for the Rural Women Entrepreneurs in Technology (RWEIT) program, which will allow EDL to continue the momentum of WESTEM by offering learning opportunities, business advisory services, and networking free of charge to rural women entrepreneurs working with technology across Alberta. An application has been submitted to ISED to hopefully continue the program past 2023.

About Innovate Calgary: Innovate Calgary has been the innovation transfer and business incubator centre for the University of Calgary for over 30 years, fostering entrepreneurship and bringing new technological discoveries to the world. Over the last decade, Innovate Calgary has expanded its ambition, offerings, and audiences. In parallel, the University of Calgary positioned itself as Canada’s most entrepreneurial university. Together, we have helped hundreds of companies and entrepreneurs bring innovation to our city, province, country, and beyond.

• Many industries have endured disruption and reconfiguration – in part due to the global pandemic as well as the acceleration of technology and digital transformation – the opportunity for innovation has never been greater. Climate change. Accessibility and inclusion. Health in developing nations. No domain is devoid of opportunity.

Interested applicants should forward their cover letter and resume to [email protected].

We thank all applicants for their interest; however, we will only contact those we need further information from or who are being considered for an interview.

Application closing date: Open until candidate is found.

Innovate Calgary is an equal opportunity organization committed to building and fostering a fair and inclusive community that values diversity and encourages respect for all. We welcome applicants across any race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, Indigenous status, or any other legally protected factors. We recognize the value of identifying and removing barriers for any applicants interested in participating in our programs.