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Innovation Consultant

We are open to applications from ambitious students graduating in 2025 or sooner. Interviews will begin on the week of July 15th. Apply ASAP.

Employment Type: Full-Time Contractor (with potential to convert to permanent full time)
Experience: 1-2 years of Management Consulting and/or Project Management Experience
Location: Canada (Toronto while working full-time), Remote (ET time zone). We have a new office in downtown Toronto and the expectation is that you will spend at least 1-2 days of the week working out of the office with your team when full-time.
Job Function: Consulting, Project Management, Research and Marketing
Timeline:
Start ASAP

As an early employee at a startup consultancy, you will have a lot of responsibility and ownership over key client projects, and the opportunity to significantly impact various parts of our business. We're looking for someone who can hit the ground running and bring industry knowledge and expertise to improve the way we work internally and with our clients.

We hold ourselves to the highest standards of being "project-obsessed" to ensure our client engagements not only run smoothly but extremely successfully. Our client projects are some of the most visible in the company across the world and our business sponsors are typically C-Suite level global leaders. Our sole mission is to help them innovate internally and drive rapid cultural change in embracing intrapreneurship and bottom-up innovation.

1. Must be eligible to work in Canada (or able to receive a work permit before commencing full-time work).

Onova is a consultancy and product studio with three areas of expertise:

(1) Taking products from 0 to 1. We have over a decade of experience in building and launching products and services, both within and outside of massive organizations.

(2) Facilitation and event design. We are deeply passionate about designing high impact events at scale, whether it be 50 people in one city, or 5,000 across 40 countries.

(3) Digital transformation with AI. We’re building, investing and partnering with AI startups and helping clients identify and implement relevant use cases in this domain.

Our primary consulting offering is running high-impact Innovation Sprints for clients, a program bringing employees together to build solutions to complex problems in a short period of time. We ensure the right challenges are defined and matched with business sponsors. Our facilitation, tools, and environment are designed to foster the creation of creative and innovative solutions. As part of our process in education and product innovation, we provide clients and their employees with the latest design thinking, design sprint, and lean startup processes and methodologies.

Our ecosystem is comprised of multiple businesses including our consulting arm, software products within our product studio, e-commerce business and venture arm. We are entrepreneurs at heart who love to experiment, build, and create. As a Innovation Consultant at Onova, your primary responsibility will be on the Onova side of the ecosystem, but you may be pulled in to support other parts of the ecosystem depending on your skillsets and interests.

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• Project management and support on large-scale, global innovation efforts for Fortune 500 clients
• Capturing client notes and documenting project deliverables
• Conducting research relevant for client projects
• Support and oversee teams of 10-50 people per project to ensure tasks are completed and deadlines are met across a wide array of work streams, including marketing, design, logistics, partnerships, operations, finance
• Build presentation decks and facilitate client meetings/workshops
• Manage technology partner relationships on client projects with companies such as Google, AWS, and Microsoft
• Identify and research key startups and technology partners to introduce to our clients

• Lead internal projects (research papers, newsletter, etc.)
• Work directly with the co-founders to implement and test new strategies to grow other business functions (client services, marketing, business development, partnerships, etc.)

Have a strong growth mindset and be very receptive to feedback: We have a high-pain, high-gain mentality. Feedback from your peers, manager and co-founders will come often and fast, and this offers you a chance to grow extremely quickly. This may come in the form of 1:1 chats with your manager, and direct feedback on live demos/presentations. You will need to be emotionally resilient and have a strong growth mindset to thrive in our culture.

Have the startup hustle:
Our working hours are not a standard 9-5. The team may often work late nights and on weekends to meet deadlines and respond to client needs. We try to balance this during our downtime with slower days/hours when we’re less busy.

Thrive in an ambiguous environment and take ownership:
Up to half of your workload will be self-driven, involving actively seeking out problems within the company, proposing solutions, and implementing them. You must feel comfortable working independently and excel in ambiguous environments where explicit instructions may not be provided.

Are emotionally intelligent and self-aware:
We expect you to be aware of your own emotions and to effectively process and communicate them with your peers. We encourage our team to embrace vulnerability and openness, as it fosters deeper connections and enhances our ability to work effectively as a team through mutual empathy.

Are highly detail-oriented and organized:
We foster a robust written culture at Onova. As a predominantly remote team, it is crucial to document and effectively communicate work and processes throughout the organization. You must exhibit a high level of attention to detail and ensure proper organization so that anyone, even without prior context, can seamlessly pick up where you left off if necessary.

Have strong communication skills:
Whether communicating your emotions, presenting in front of an audience, writing documentation, or simply writing an e-mail, you must be a strong communicator. The ability to succinctly and effectively convey your thoughts in any medium is highly valued at Onova.

Are team-oriented and collaborative:
Naturally, this is critical for a startup like ours. It's important that everyone feels supported and encouraged to do their best work, but they are also able to support one another proactively.

Enjoy being creative and thinking outside the box:
We are a team of creative thinkers who enjoy challenging the status quo and being different. If you enjoy learning and growing in diverse subject areas and thinking about the future, you'll be a great fit.

AI fluency and ability to leverage AI tools:
It's important for all members of our team to be well-versed and confident in using AI tools to supercharge and boost their efficiency. It's vital for our team to stay ahead of the curve and continuously learn about new tools that will improve the way we work and/or serve our clients.

Applications are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Note that you will need to submit a 1-minute video as part of your application.


Challenge Statement:
How might we identify and disrupt the bias in our organization’s systems?

Context:
Bias in our systems impact productivity, creativity and innovation. Systemic bias benefits some individuals while leaving others disadvantaged. Reducing systemic bias will lead to increased retention, engagement, morale, trust and inclusion across an organization.

Parameters:
- Expect resistance from various levels of management and leadership
- Must create psychological safety where people are comfortable to speak up and share
- Consider anonymous embedded feedback mechanisms
- Must be outcome-based and measurable to report back on results