Reporting to the Controller, this position serves as a key leader overseeing the organization’s business planning efforts. Responsible for initiating, developing, and executing strategies and processes to promote business planning activities. The Manager, Corporate Planning and Development, is responsible for directing the development of OCI’s strategic and enterprise-wide planning activities and ensuring alignment with OCI’s strategic direction. 

The role leads the development of OCI’s strategic and annual business plans and is accountable for driving the achievement of the corporate goals and objectives approved by the Board of Directors. The position also oversees the annual budgeting process, including providing relevant historical and trend analysis, leading the development and review of budget assumptions, and ensuring the overall integrity and rigour of the process. 

The Manager, Corporate Planning and Development is accountable for administering the annual budgeting process, including providing relevant historical and trending information to support the exercise, reviewing, advising and leading on the budgetary assumptions process, and ensuring the overall integrity of the process.  The role partners closely with staff, management, and stakeholders to assess activities, outcomes, trends, and opportunities, and provides strategic guidance, actionable analysis, and insights to support effective decision-making. 

Duties and Responsibilities   

• Leads the strategic management activities that drive the development, implementation and ongoing evaluation of the corporate planning process and acts as a liaison to facilitate the consistency of strategy development and business planning across the organization.   
• Develops and is accountable for the creation of OCI strategic and business plans, facilitating acceptance and approval by the Board, and leading updates as required.  
• Leads the development of a long-term and short-term corporate business plan, ensuring that major corporate objectives are developed and maintained throughout the planning process.  
• Drives the corporate planning process by collecting and analyzing information; recommending actions; tracking results; ensuring efficient practices, and maintaining high quality assurance standards in documenting, analyzing and interpreting complex results. 
• Conduct analysis and make recommendations related to the performance of OCI’s programs to facilitate corporate strategy and planning, including a review of and revisions to OCI’s revenue and outcomes forecast.  
• Produce standard monthly reporting for management, including revenue and cost analysis, perform budget reviews (actual vs. budget), forecasting, and business analytics. 
• Develop standard procedures and a strong continuous improvement strategy across all deliverables. 
• Tracks and assesses progress against corporate priorities to support decision-making and strategy development across the organization, including at the Executive Team and Board of Directors levels.  
• Improve monitoring of the organization’s Compliance Matrix to ensure alignment and adherence to the Transfer Payment Agreements (TPAs) and the key deliverables by providing regular reports. Provides sound, accurate and timely information to the Executive Team, Controller, and other departments as required, enabling them to monitor corporate performance and take corrective action when necessary.  
• Leads, develops, and operationalizes organization strategies that create a collaborative and energizing work environment.  
• Builds and maintains relationships with funding stakeholders and serves as a liaison with the funding Ministry and other government agencies on issues of corporate planning and development.   
• Supports the development of proposals and funding applications.  
• Works cooperatively and collaboratively with other OCI staff.  
• May be required to perform other related duties as assigned.   

 Qualifications  

• Bachelor’s Degree or higher in a relevant field (e.g., business, economics, finance) from a university.  
• A recognized accounting accreditation [CA/CMA/CGA/CPA]. 
• Minimum of 7 years of related experience in strategic/corporate planning, including strategic review process and strategy formulation; experience in developing and delivering funding proposals.  
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to develop/deliver reports and presentations to senior-level audiences. Significant work experience in a corporate (as opposed to professional services) environment is highly desired; however, some experience may be drawn from advisory positions in investment, legal or consulting firms.  
• Experience in dealing with public sector funding along with federal and provincial contacts and network; knowledge of Ontario’s innovation ecosystem and innovation programs.  
• Strong strategic thinking to develop creative and effective strategies to achieve the organization’s strategic partnership objectives.  
• Strong skills in finance, strategic and quantitative analysis, project management, leadership, and negotiation.    
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally, managing internal and external teams.  
• A proven collaborator and relationship builder with the ability to understand different perspectives, seek mutually beneficial solutions and broker deals.  
• Highly developed, interpretive, and analytical skills in MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.  
• Familiar with the “language” and terminology of industry, finance, government, and the academic community.  
• Perform other related duties as required and assigned.  

Working Conditions  

• Standard office environment  
• Standard office hours  (in person)

This role is being recruited to fill a current vacancy. 

OCI is committed to creating a diverse and equitable environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. OCI welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process