Startup Portfolio Lead

**Startup Portfolio Lead** **Platform Calgary** You believe Calgary is a thriving tech ecosystem and can’t wait to accelerate its growth today and into tomorrow. Building a meaningful career and community, while putting your own innovative spin on things is what you were meant to do as Platform Calgary’s newest **STARTUP PORTFOLIO LEAD.** The role involves collaborating amongst other members of the Platform team to facilitate startup-focused programming, and engaging with external coaches and community partners to help founders overcome obstacles, refine their strategies, and accelerate their business growth. This position plays a vital part in enabling startups to access programs, partnerships, and tools designed to support their development and scale their impact. This role is a contract position through August 2025, with the possibility of extension. **The day-to-day activities of the Startup Portfolio Lead will include**: - **Founder/Startup Support.** Work with a portfolio of startup founders to assess startup needs and determine next steps in regards to the programming offered by Platform Calgary and/or other community resources, through one-to-one and one-to-many sessions. Develop relationships with founders to assess the unique challenges of scaling and later-stage growth, identifying resources and strategies tailored to their maturity level. Conduct regular portfolio reviews and share insights with the team on progress of startups. - **Facilitation.** Lead in-person and/or online delivery of startup programming at Platform Calgary. Contribute to the design of programming tailored to startups in all stages, with a focus on scaling challenges such as team growth and product-market fit refinement. Collaborate with Program Managers and Coordinators to ensure the smooth execution of programs. - **Partner Engagement.** Engage with partner organizations and the broader tech ecosystem to understand programs and resources (advisory, programming, funding, etc.) available for startup founders, and connect startup founders to relevant resources as needed. - **Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility.** Assist in the development of initiatives that provide additional support to under-represented founders in the Calgary startup ecosystem and increase representation across programming, coaching and in the founder community. Advocate for under-represented and marginalized founders to ensure equitable and accessible opportunity is given. - **Communication & Relationship Building.** Work cross-functionally to ensure alignment with organizational goals and achievement of KPIs across all initiatives. Develop and strengthen relationships with a diverse team including Program Managers, coaches, investors, and partners. Maintain ongoing communication with startups post-programming, gathering feedback, providing support for the startup/founder's progress, and ensuring the smooth progression through the programming pipeline at Platform Calgary and across the Calgary tech community. - **Founder Success & Experience.** Highlight founder and startup trends and challenges to the Platform Calgary team. Act as the voice of the founder and lead program enhancements. Other responsibilities include: - Act as a spokesperson on behalf of Platform Calgary on matters related to the successes and challenges of founders. - Act as a Platform Calgary ambassador, by attending community/ecosystem events, and actively seeking out startups that could benefit from becoming a Platform member or accessing our portfolio of startup programming. - 5+ years experience in entrepreneurship, a scaling tech company and/or startup programming is highly valuable. - Ability to work with a portfolio of companies across multiple sectors and of varying stages of maturity. - Strong interpersonal skills to build and maintain relationships with founders, partners and members. - Comfortable presenting to groups and facilitating discussions. - Ability to flourish with mínimal guidance, be proactive, and handle uncertainty and ambiguity. - Knowledgeable about entrepreneur development and the regional startup ecosystem. - Deep understanding of startup development across all stages, with a focus on scaling, growth strategies, and later-stage challenges. - Competency in G-Suite, Asana, Slack, Eventbrite, HubSpot and Notion are considered an asset. **During the interview process, we will be looking for behaviors that demonstrate**: - **Empathy.** Founders are constantly stuck between a rock and a hard place. You must be there to push the rock back, advocate for the founder and surround them with resources so that they can make decisions that reflect reality and represent what is best for the business. - **Growth Mindset.** Platform Calgary’s programming is designed to help support growth for the founder’s company and for themselves as entrepreneurs. Whether or not the founder decides to continue with their business, they should be left with a s