Manager, Strategic Initiatives and Innovation

Standards Council of Canada (SCC)

The Standards Council of Canada (SCC) is a federal Crown corporation with the mandate to promote efficient and effective standardization in Canada. Located in Ottawa, SCC has a Governing Council comprised of up to 13 members and a staff of approximately 150. The organization reports to Parliament through Innovation, Science and Industry and oversees Canada's standardization network.

Job Summary and Key Activities

Reporting to the Director, Strategy and Integration, the Manager, Strategic Initiatives and Innovation leads organization-wide strategic initiatives to design, develop and secure programs and services, advance organizational integration, and increase business performance, with the aim of enhancing the overall responsiveness and impact of SCC's activities and programs.

The Manager coordinates engagement and scoping of emerging needs in priority areas with a particular focus on key interested parties and user groups, including industry, policy makers, and civil society. The Manager leverages these engagements and external collaborations, working across the organization to support the prioritization and strategic management of emerging opportunity areas, and the development of robust and impactful programs, projects and services that leverage the full range of SCC's capabilities, partnerships, and strategic relationships.

The Manager works closely with other managers and members of the Senior Management Committee (SMC) to identify service improvement opportunities and the design and implementation of change programs that support the growth and effectiveness of SCC's service model.

KEY ACTIVITIES

Leads SCC's innovation program and strategic growth and impact initiatives through:

• Aligning the innovation programming to SCC's organizational priority areas
• Promoting innovative and collaborative ways of working within SCC and externally
• Engaging with SCC's key interest and policy communities, including industry and government representatives, to align strategies and initiatives to emerging opportunities to increase responsiveness, and enhance and grow the impact of SCC's activities and programs
• Managing the program development pipeline for SCC including overseeing prioritization of identified opportunities
• Providing deep policy and business analysis involving complex and technical subject matter to support evidence-based decision-making and to advance informed design and implementation of new programs and services, and change initiatives

Provides direction and leads business integration priorities through:

• Building cross-functional teams, designing and implementing new services, offerings, approaches and processes that enhance cohesiveness, focus, transparency and awareness
• Leading the system-wide integration agenda for the delivery of the National Standards Strategy
• Supporting the development and overseeing implementation of the Business Integration and Service Delivery Roadmap
• Conducting reviews of business practice, processes, and service delivery and identifying opportunities for business improvement
• Leading business improvement change programs including leading teams or projects on an interim basis where necessary to implement the required change

Manages cross-functional working groups and staff (including under a shared management model) through:

• Leading or participating in cross-functional teams across SCC, supporting there to be clear accountabilities, awareness, input, and planning across internal teams and subject matter experts
• Ensuring team members (for either horizontal or vertical teams) have a clear allocation of work and expected performance objectives and alignment of activities across the team
• Ensuring working groups have designated leadership, a clearly defined purpose, and that team members have clearly defined accountabilities
• Negotiating with members of the Senior Management Committee to secure staffing resources and subject matter experts for cross-functional working groups

Essential Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in a related field and/or comparable professional experience

Experience

• Business and/ or program development experience, preferably within a public sector setting
• Experience in business and policy analysis and awareness of the Canadian policy environment and current and emerging policy priorities
• Experience leading cross-functional teams

Asset Qualification

• Advanced project management skills including the ability to design and lead multiple complex projects concurrently (PMP an asset)
• In depth experience with program and policy development in a public sector setting
• Excellent understanding of the role of standards nationally and internationally

Skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present compelling arguments
• Ability to lead business or program/service improvement initiatives
• Strong ability to conceptualize and develop new programs, projects and services to achieve policy outcomes, respond to market needs, and address the needs of user communities
• Strong ability to take a systems focus and a proficiency in reading, analysing, and deriving insights from data and complex relationships
• Bilingual imperative

A final note

Note 1: Priority will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

Note 2: SCC is responsible for the Personnel Security Clearance process. Typically to be eligible for a "Reliability" clearance, you must have five years of verifiable background information and to be eligible for a "Secret" clearance, you must have 10 years of verifiable background information. The process usually involves reference inquiries, verification of qualifications, criminal records checks, and credit checks (as required) and may require fingerprints. For more information about obtaining a security clearance, please review the Standard on Security Screening.

Please attach a detailed cover letter to your resume. In addition to learning about your education, training and experience, we want to hear your story We'd love to hear about how your accomplishments, and the skills you applied to achieve them, relate to them and why you think this opportunity is a good fit for you.

We are committed to creating and fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment that reflects the peoples' lives that we impact and the Canadian community that we work within. We strive to create an environment where everyone is comfortable being their authentic selves. We welcome Indigenous peoples and persons from all races, ethnicities, gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, and physical or mental abilities to be part of our team.

We strive to ensure a barrier-free selection process. If you are contacted regarding a job opportunity, testing or interview, please advise the HR representative of the accommodation measures that you require to enable you to be assessed in a fair and equitable manner.

Please apply directly on SCC's Careers Page before the closing date - October 31, 2025

We will be carefully reviewing all applications, and those who's qualifications align best with our current needs will be contacted. You will receive confirmation that your application has reached us.

Thank you for your interest in SCC and for taking the time to review this ad.