Discover

The Opportunity

Toronto, ON
Can work Remote
Information Technology
Experienced
Full-time

Highline Beta builds and funds ventures in collaboration with global corporate enterprises across a variety of industries. In some cases we incubate new startups from the outside and in others we support internal corporate innovation engagements. For example, we've helped RBC Ventures launch 10+ new ventures in market across multiple verticals. This has involved doing early research and validation work into opportunities, mockups and early prototyping, roadmap support and strategic coaching.

As a Senior Venture Operations Director, you'll be responsible for day-to-day management and coaching of 2 internal venture teams for one of our corporate CPG clients - drawing on your own experience as a product builder to help coach them along their journey while directly applying your skills to improve the ventures' likelihood of success. To do this, you'll have the support of a cross-functional Highline Beta team of researchers, designers, and strategists. Our team will roll up their sleeves and collaborate directly with the client to help them successfully find product-market fit while at the same time coaching them on product and new venture development best practices. 

What you'll do

Responsibilities

Account & Delivery Role:

The account & delivery team at Highline Beta are customer-obsessed doers who are driven by outcomes over outputs. We're looking for someone who's as comfortable leading a corporate client team doing new venture development for the first time as they are being in the trenches working on and building a business. As the Senior Venture Operations Director you will be responsible for:

  • Identifying where there is opportunity to build businesses given the corporate client's current challenges and business objectives through a mixture of problem-finding, ideation, validation, and coaching
  • Using Lean Startup, Design Thinking and Jobs to be Done to break those opportunities down into small, testable pieces - designing a rigorous testing system to do so
  • Helping size and prioritize potential opportunities in order to determine what to chase, coaching the client through the decision
  • Recommending processes, frameworks, and methods for validating and developing new businesses
  • Conducting qualitative and quantitative market research to rigorously validate business assumptions/opportunities
  • Creating business plans and models for new ventures, products and services - taking into account desirability, viability, and feasibility considerations
  • Willing to get into the trenches with corporate teams, supporting on anything from product, design or development strategy (and knowing who to ask in the organization to fill in for these skills)
  • Inspiring confidence in clients as they adapt to new ways of working and thinking

What you'll need

Qualifications

Required Skills / Experiences

  • 5+ years design, research or product development experience, giving you expertise in a hypothesis-driven approach to product or service development
  • 3+ years experience consulting with client teams, ideally with some experience in innovation consulting specifically
  • Experience applying Design Thinking and Lean Startup methodologies to products and services
  • Ability to quickly understand a specific domain and identify the trends and opportunities in that space
  • Experience managing small and nimble teams
  • Experience working with multiple stakeholders

Desired Skills / Experiences

  • Experience launching and building new products (1st user)
  • Experience in a high-pressure startup environment
  • CPG client experience
  • Proficient ability to do any of the following when required: market research, qualitative (user) research, quantitative research, foresight strategy, ideation, product management
  • Technical or design skills are considered a plus

We're looking for

Core Skills

Account Management Business Strategy Coaching Design Thinking Lean Startup Product Management Strategic Communications Strategic Consulting User Research

A little bit about us

Highline Beta

At Highline Beta, we celebrate our inclusive work environment and welcome members of all backgrounds and perspectives to apply. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations and will work with you to meet your needs. If you are a person with a disability and require assistance during the application process, please don't hesitate to reach out!

Are you interested?

Work With Us

At Highline Beta we build businesses. In some cases we support clients doing so organically, in other cases we create new startups solving real problems that matter and help great founders launch and scale. You'll have an opportunity to work with a deeply passionate and skilled team that cares about making the world a better place. You'll get to learn from a diverse team of investors, entrepreneurs, designers, product managers, and more. You'll be challenged daily to push yourself, gain new skills, practice and teach the ones you're already an expert in, and help everyone -- yourself, your team, our clients, and our collaborators -- win. Our preferred style is to work with the client, not for the client.