UBC The University of British Columbia is hiring a Senior Director, Partnerships

Responsibilities

• Sets the overall vision for the customized development programs portfolio.
• Develops and implements long-term strategies to grow the portfolio's reach and profitability.
• Leads the financial planning and oversight for the portfolio to ensure its long-term fiscal health, sustainability, and alignment with unit’s strategic priorities.
• Establishes annual strategic goals and KPI targets in collaboration with the Executive Director.
• Implements, monitors and reports on KPIs.
• Researches and assesses new markets; Identifies market trends, industry needs and new opportunities through research and industry consultation.
• Works extensively with existing stakeholders and develops new relationships with external organizations; Develops strategies for client relationship management.
• Creates innovative opportunities and partnerships to find new sources of revenue and further increase unit’s profitability.
• Leads the development of strategic initiatives that are complex in scope, impact and diversity of stakeholders with significant long-term importance and impact to the Professional Growth portfolio.
• Continuously develops and maintains relationships with faculty and instructors, ensuring that the portfolio can draw on extensive bench strength.
• Negotiates contracts and agreements.
• Develops and manages custom program budgets, pricing models, and resource allocations, ensuring that custom program revenue achieves desired profit margins.
• Provides leadership in the development of new client proposals and is responsible for overall customization and quality of RFPs submissions on behalf of the unit.
• Provides direction and focus to the Director, Business Development in creating new partnerships and acquisition of new clients.
• Drives the commercial performance of customized client projects.
• Represents the unit at conferences, industry meetings, and client engagements.
• Identifies programming strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and develops key academic and entrepreneurial planning strategies.
• In collaboration with Academic Directors and faculty members develops a comprehensive world class curriculum of the entire portfolio of partnerships and personalized solution programs.
• Designs programs collaboratively with Academic Directors, faculty and clients, utilizing the full range of UBC experience and resources and understands client business context and challenges and how they relate to leadership.
• Develops domestic and international programs that are marketed towards top sectors in the market.
• Leads the development and implementation of programming plans and academic calendar.
• Ensures courses are at the highest standard for the national and international market.
• Plans and implements educational policies for all custom programs and operations.
• Ensures custom programs are compliant with university and industry standards and meet the vision of the client.
• Drives innovation in delivery models, learner engagement, instructional design and impact on portfolio clients.
• Develops strategies and policies to gather feedback from clients and faculty regarding onsite experience; develops and implements methodologies to address areas for improvement.
• Analyzes needs of current clients’ pre-program and post-program delivery and proposes further solutions.
• Collaborates with operations and administrative teams to maintain smooth and successful program delivery.
• Demonstrates strong, effective and highly visible leadership to the Professional Growth unit; responsible for leading and inspiring the team to establish strategies, plans and objectives to enhance unit’s revenue and reputation.
• Drives a culture of client centricity and motivates and inspires the teams to constantly strive for excellence in performance.
• Instills a culture of continuous improvement and constructive feedback among the team.
• Performs other duties as required.

Requirements

• Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline.
• Minimum of nine years of related experience in a senior management position, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own
• Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Nice to Have

• Master’s degree in business, education or related areas is preferred.
• Proven sales and business development track record in private sector, higher education or consultancy environment.
• Demonstrated experience in partnership development and strategic planning.
• Experience in stakeholder management.
• Ability to call on all levels of an organization.
• Excellent presentation skills.
• Proven supervisory and leadership skills, ideally in a business development capacity.
• Proven ability to lead large teams and manage multiple educational program streams.
• Strong entrepreneurial mindset and ability to grow revenue in a complex, competitive environment.
• Superior communication, relationship management, and negotiation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to manage ambiguity and navigate university systems and governance.
• Experience in financial planning, budget oversight, and ROI-driven decision-making.
• Deep understanding of national and international professional education trends.
• Experience with instructional design, executive consulting and facilitation skills.
• Proven and significant program design, development and management track record in a learning or consultancy environment, ideally with experience in a similar role in university-based professional education.
• Marketing background and strong understanding of a professional education environment.
• Ability to travel frequently as required.

Work Arrangement

On-site

Team

Structure: The Senior Director is responsible for managing the Director, Business Development and a team of Account Managers and supports other leaders in the Professional Growth unit to manage staff/contractors/consultants.

Additional Information

• The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.
• The Senior Director exercises critical judgement and decision-making on key client management, strategic prospect management, and pricing of Professional Growth services with major revenue and profit implications.
• The Senior Director exercises judgement and tact in dealing with clients, UBC Sauder faculty members and employees.
• The Senior Director represents the university, UBC Sauder and Professional Growth to key external groups, often at a very high organizational level.
• Incorrect decisions/ judgement directly affects the UBC Sauder’s and UBC's reputation with the business community and key stakeholders.
• Incorrect decisions have significant direct impact on the financial performance of the Professional Growth business unit and UBC Sauder in general, while also critically affecting the operations of Professional Growth programs, and the reputation of the unit, the school and the University.