Lead year-round partner engagement for Horizon: design and run recurring events and flagship summits; recruit and match corporate, investor, and advisor stakeholders; grow top-of-funnel ~140 new senior leads yearly; maintain CRM/AI-driven systems and metrics; collaborate with marketing and programming to maximize commercialization outcomes for international scale-ups.
Ecosystem & Partnerships Manager
Location: Toronto, ON (5 days/week, in-office)
Employment Type: Full-Time, Permanent
Department: Programming & Partnerships
Reports to: Director of Partnerships
Salary: $85,000–$100,000 annually, plus performance-based bonus (10%)
Company Overview
The Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) is Canada's first business incubator, with over 35 years of experience supporting more than 9,000 local and international entrepreneurs, including two that became unicorns. Focused on driving meaningful outcomes, TBDC equips high-potential startups with the resources, clients, and capital they need to grow.
About Horizon
TBDC's flagship is Horizon — a program that helps high-potential international scale-ups land and expand in North America. The goal isn't better events or better programming; it's real commercialization outcomes: founders who understand the market, win customers, raise capital, and plug into the ecosystem.
Horizon runs as one connected funnel of three products:
- Scout — an AI-first, expert-validated market-intelligence tool that produces deep research reports framing each founder's market and the engagement ahead.
- Sprint — an intensive week in the Toronto market, where each cohort meets the stakeholders, customers, and investors who help them understand the market and start selling or raising.
- Surge — the conversion into sustained support: we match founders with vetted advisors and consultants for ongoing, paid advisory and go-to-market work.
The Partnership Manager builds and runs the year-round engine that fills that funnel with the right people.
Who You Are
You build trust quickly and are comfortable engaging senior stakeholders directly. You are a connected operator who builds trust quickly and knows how to bring the right people into the room. Senior executives, customers, investors, and ecosystem partners take your call because you are credible, prepared, and known for creating value. You bring an existing network of relevant contacts. You're already in the ecosystem, you know people, and people know you. You might come from the worlds where relationships compound fast — government and political offices, venture, corporate innovation, or a high-growth startup — and you've built a rolodex most people would take a decade to assemble. You're a connector, convener, and commercial relationship builder: you love putting the right people together and watching opportunities come out of it.
Position Summary
We are seeking a Partnership Manager to build and run the year-round engagement engine behind Horizon. We want to activate our existing stakeholders and invite new ones — increasing visibility, participation, and engagement from commercial partners, investors, advisory consultants, and high-profile builders and operators — and turn that attention into real value for the international scale-ups we work with.
Reporting to the Director of Partnerships, this role will:
- design and produce a recurring calendar of high-touch experiences (thematic events, breakfast series, fireside chats, industry workshops, and summits) that give stakeholders value all year round.
- serve as a trusted connector and builder who brings senior operators, customers, and investors into contact with our founders.
- recruit and steward the partner and advisory pool that supports every Horizon company.
- be a key commercialization enabler across the innovation communities in Ontario and beyond.
- grow and strengthen TBDC's relationships with corporate, innovation, government, academic, and investor partners across Canada.
Key Responsibilities
Year-Round Engagement Engine
- Design and produce thematic events that convene senior guests from the priority sectors we've identified.
- Build the recurring touchpoints that keep these relationships warm: a partner-hosted breakfast series, industry fireside chats, masterclass workshops, and partner spotlights.
- Anchor the year around two flagship summits, one in the fall and one in the spring (for example, during the Elevate Festival and Toronto Tech Week).
- Align the events calendar to the composition of each incoming cohort, so the customer, partner, and investor profiles you convene match what founders need.
- Drive measurable top-of-funnel growth, with a target of roughly 140 net-new senior leads per year.
Stakeholder Recruitment & Matchmaking
- Recruit across the stakeholder groups we serve: commercial partners, customers, and investors; advisory consultants and mentors; and high-profile, seasoned builders, operators, and executives who have scaled businesses to $100M and beyond.
- Re-engage our existing and dormant network of customers, partners, and investors — including domestic stakeholders who want to stay close to TBDC — by inviting them to attend and to speak at our events.
- Use those relationships to source net-new leaders from their own organizations, sister companies, and affiliates, growing our pool of customers, partners, investors, and Surge advisors.
- Run a dual entry strategy: top-down to reach senior executives and decision-makers, and bottom-up to win the day-to-day champion, building relationships at both levels.
- Source and qualify the advisory support behind Surge, helping build out the active advisor and mentor pool.
Systems, Data & Tools
- Stay highly organized and bring strong project-management discipline to a busy pipeline of stakeholders, events, and follow-ups.
- Leverage AI and CRM tooling to research prospects, enrich and score leads, and draft outreach — so you work faster and more effectively, with a human always in the loop on every relationship.
- Maintain clean records and track the metrics that matter — funnel growth, engagement, and partner outcomes — turning them into insights that improve strategy and execution.
Cross-Functional Activation
- Collaborate with Marketing on event production, storytelling, and spotlighting partners and founder wins.
- Align partner offerings with our programming so stakeholders are matched to the right founders at the right stage.
What Success Looks Like in Year One
We'll have defined clear OKRs with you before you start, so you always know where you're driving. Broadly, success looks like:
The engine runs all year. A live, recurring events calendar — two flagship summits plus the breakfast / fireside / masterclass cadence — tuned to each incoming cohort.
Top of funnel grows. Roughly 140 net-new senior leads per year, plus a meaningfully re-engaged dormant network of past customers, partners, and investors.
Founders meet the right people. A qualified, active pool of customers, partners, investors, and Surge advisors, matched to founders at the right stage — and warm relationships TBDC can draw on again and again.
Qualifications
- You arrive with a database / rolodex. An existing, active network of corporate, government, investor, or ecosystem contacts is a core requirement of this role, not a nice-to-have. You're in the ecosystem, you know people, and people look up to you.
- 3–5 years in the startup ecosystem (e.g., startups, accelerators, VCs, corporate innovation, or government programs), with strengths in business development, partnerships, and ecosystem engagement. We weight background and fit over an exact number of years.
- Demonstrated experience planning and producing events, dinners, or convenings that bring senior stakeholders together.
- A skilled relationship builder and communicator, trusted by stakeholders for clarity, professionalism, and consistent delivery.
- Experienced in lead sourcing and outbound prospecting; comfortable using AI and CRM tooling to run a pipeline.
- Quick-thinking and strategic, able to synthesize complex information and present it clearly across audiences.
- Organized, adaptable, proactive, and energized by a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment.
- Collaborative, with a strong sense of ownership and commitment to team outcomes.
Benefits and Perks
We offer a competitive benefits package designed to support your health, well-being, and work-life balance, including:
- Comprehensive health and dental benefits
- Vision care coverage
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Flexible float days
- Convenient on-site parking
- Opportunities to participate in company events, team activities, and employee experiences
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