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 [email protected] 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 Position
The Sr. Director, Finance & Business Operations provides strategic financial leadership and operational oversight that ensures MaRS meets its organizational objectives, maintains strong governance, and upholds compliance with legal, regulatory, and funding requirements. It drives informed decision-making through accurate reporting, risk management, and alignment of financial operations with strategic goals.
This is an 18-month contract.
Key Responsibilities
FARC and Board Matters
- Prepares and leads presentation of board, committee and management reporting, decision-support analysis and feedback that is timely, accurate, and compelling with which to manage the business.
- Direct support for the Finance, Audit & Risk Committee chair.
Budgets & Forecasts
- Oversee the annual operating budget for MaRS Discovery District and MaRS IAF, ensuring the engagement of appropriate stakeholders and alignment with strategic plan commitments.
- Contribute to organizational decision-making by providing analyses, consultative advice and recommendations for the CEO and Senior team.
- Act as a strategic problem solver within a fast-paced environment, managing priorities and responding to partners and other stakeholders
Audited Financial Statements & Tax Filings
- Oversee the annual financial statement audit and tax activities, including planning, managing auditor relationships, satisfying audit requirements, and preparation of GAAP financial statements for MaRS Discovery District, MaRS IAF, MaRS’ real estate companies, and other Small Cos/Trusts.
Legal, Risk, Insurance, and Regulatory Compliance
- Provide strategic oversight of Legal Compliance, ensuring alignment with corporate objectives and risk management practices, and support corporate governance activities
- Leads the Enterprise Risk Management Program to ensure the organization is able to achieve its objectives, integrity of financial practices and compliance with the expectations of funders and auditors.
- Oversee compliance on regulatory, contractual requirements, accounting standards and best practices by monitoring and updating accounting and reporting policies, processes and practices that support and reinforce organization policy, and internal controls.
Full Cycle Accounting, Interim Financial Reporting, & Treasury
- Oversees full-cycle accounting processes - MDD, IAF, Small Cos, OSSU
- Oversees financial analysis for CEO & Senior Leadership and report quarterly
- Secondary contact for banking matters - signing authority, new/renewals of financing/contracts
- Reviews and approves banking transactions
- Review and provide oversight to payroll in coordination with the People & Culture team
Government Contracts, Data Operations & Reporting
- Oversight of major government grants with provincial and federal gov’ts ensuring deliverables are met (program objectives and outcomes are tracked and all reporting is delivered, grants are optimized and government relationships are managed (liaising with various gov’t stakeholders).
- Oversee data operations for reporting purposes, ensuring high data integrity, operation efficiency, and cross-functional alignment for reporting and analytics
Leadership
- Encourage, inspire and motivate team to meet their individual potential
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance or related field
- Accounting Designation required
- CPA, CA/CMA/CGA
- Master's degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field an asset
- 15+ years of management experience
- Experience reporting to and negotiating with Provincial and Federal Government funders an asset
- Thorough knowledge of Canadian GAAP and reporting standards.
- In-depth knowledge of not-for-profit accounting standards (ASNPO)
- Detailed working knowledge of provincial and federal grant restrictions and reporting requirements.
- Progressive experience in a finance and operational oversight capacity.
- Experience engagement with and supporting Governance, including working with and supporting Board committees.
- The success of this role is dependent upon the incumbent possessing a partnership mindset, strong influencing skills, internal relationship management capability and a keen operational/process-improvement orientation
- Experience with NetSuite accounting software & Salesforce
- Public practice/audit/CA experience in the NFP sector is beneficial due to the technical expertise required for this role
Applications will close at 5pm EDT on June 19, 2025.
Applicants must be legally eligible to work in Canada and reside in Ontario.
Salary Range: $160,000 - $195,000, extended healthcare benefits, lifestyle spending account, and paid time-off.
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What We Do
MaRS is the world's largest urban innovation hub in Toronto that supports startups in the health, cleantech, fintech, and enterprise sectors. When MaRS opened in 2005 this concept of urban innovation was an untested theory. Today, it’s reshaping cities around the world. MaRS has been at the forefront of a wave of change that extends from Melbourne to Amsterdam and runs through San Francisco, London, Medellín, Los Angeles, Paris and New York. These global cities are now striving to create what we have in Toronto: a dense innovation district that co-locates universities, startups, corporates and investors. In this increasingly competitive landscape, scale matters more than ever – the best talent is attracted to the brightest innovation hotspots.
