About

• 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
• The Associate, Adaptation and Resilience, is responsible for supporting the project management and delivery of MaRS’s AdapTech Program. This involves management of internal and external stakeholder relations, including ventures, advisors, legal, marketing & communications, etc. The Associate is responsible to keep the program on timeline, raise risks, and creatively problem solve with available resources to help MaRS best support ventures in the adaptation and resilience space.

• This is an 18-mth contract.

• Key Responsibilities
• Co-delivering on the AdapTech work plan, both leading and delegating tasks. This includes ensuring the timely completion of deliverables, within budget.

Lead venture cohort delivery

• Develop materials for outreach, recruitment, onboarding, and offboarding of cohort ventures.
• Coordinate the cohort review and selection process, including the creation of scoring rubrics and support for recruiting review committee members.
• Assist in designing cohort programming (e.g., workshops, guest speakers, events) and coordinate scheduling with participants.
• Provide administrative and logistical support for the delivery of cohort activities
• Conduct venture needs assessments and establish a regular check-in schedule with cohort participants
• Lead coordination of demo days, investor showcases, and other venture-facing events
• Support Corporate Engagement
• Assist with the development of knowledge sharing products for corporate partners around AdapTech trends, policy and regulatory implications, financial and operational risks, etc.
• Develop capacity building sessions (e.g. webinars) for corporate partners on AdapTech, providing administrative and logistical support throughout.
• Support ad hoc research on related topics, for example, mobilization of private capital for adaptation. The Associate will be expected to stay up to date on adaptation-related topics in Canada.
• Support the management of key external stakeholder relations; ventures, private capital providers, corporate partners, advisory committee, funders, and others. The Associate will support during meeting preparation and delivery, as well as follow-up communications. They’ll be encouraged to explore and activate new potential collaborations that help advance the AdapTech mission.
• Support the management of internal stakeholders including but not limited to legal, marketing and communications, and finance teams at MaRS. This may include contributing to thought leadership efforts by supporting storytelling initiatives with the marcoms team, and participating in relevant industry events and conferences. The Associate will also seek areas of alignment and collaboration with related missions and programs (e.g. Public Procurement, Better Buildings, Food and Agriculture)
• Support the monitoring, evaluation and learning processes to assess the impact and lessons of this program. The Associate will also coordinate with the BD and Philanthropic office to communicate said impact with existing funders, provide program update reports, and support new opportunities to scale.
• Host a weekly team meeting to review progress, assign tasks, and discuss risk mitigation

• Qualifications
• Undergraduate/Bachelor’s degree or relevant experience
• Degree in climate, business, tech, or policy background an asset

2+ years of experience at a relevant organization where you

• Had a client-facing role
• Gained exposure to working with timelines and balancing multiple projects
• Worked with diverse stakeholders
• Demonstrated an ability to learn quickly and apply that to your work
• Experience working with ventures an asset
• Experience working with investors or corporate partners an asset
• Knowledge and interest in adaptation and resilience an asset
• Excellent interpersonal and communications skills (oral and written) with the ability to collaborate effectively with a wide range of external and internal stakeholders
• Comfort working in an environment with evolving and changing priorities
• Ability to easily adapt to new responsibilities and learn new job-related skills
• Curiosity – we are looking for people who genuinely want to understand and creatively address the needs of our partners
• We are seeking a systems thinker that understands the interconnectedness of climate issues with other compounding social needs. The ideal candidate will be able to draw connections and effectively support the delivery of AdapTech as a multi-solving project in an emerging field.

• Applications will close at 5pm EDT on September 18, 2025. However, we may close the posting earlier if we receive a high volume of qualified applications or if the position is filled before the deadline. We encourage interested candidates to apply as soon as possible.

• 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.
• #LI-MDD