Reporting to the Director, Centre for Health Innovation (CHI), the Centre Manager will provide senior administrative leadership, direction, and coordination of comprehensive management of centre operations and strategic initiatives. CHI is a radically interdisciplinary, solutions-focused group of clinician-scientists, engineers, humanities experts, and basic and social scientists tackling the increasing complexity of today’s health and healthcare delivery challenges. We are transforming health research by creating cohesive interdisciplinary teams, state-of-the-art platforms, and community partnerships to forge paths towards the next generation of health solutions.

The Centre Manager provides operational leadership and direction. This position is accountable for effective project management, including financial and administrative management; ensuring goals and objectives are achieved and in compliance with applicable guidelines, regulations, policies, and reporting requirements. The incumbent will ensure optimization of systems and processes critical to the CHI mission and the success moving forward.

This position requires independent decision making, knowledge of the interdisciplinary landscape, a broad understanding of the research issues related to biomedical research, an understanding of national and international funding agencies, proposal and report writing skills, entrepreneurial skills, research management principles, practices, and a results-based initiative. The Centre Manager serves as the primary contact for CHI, supports the strategic advisory group, research committees, chairs various research and program development working groups, provides information and advice to internal and external stakeholders, and acts as the Director’s delegate in the development and oversight of research conducted within CHI.

KEY RESPONSIBILITES:

Strategic Leadership & Initiative Management
• Identify, communicate, and implement sound strategic directions for CHI, subject to Centre Director and Board approval, and provide leadership for all Board-approved programs and activities across the mandate areas.
• Working as a key member of the leadership team and in consultation with the Director, create annual and long-range plans for CHI, organizational goals/objectives, and measurements for evaluating success, ensuring that CHI meets its strategic goals and objectives in a manner consistent with the mission and mandate.
• Work with CHI staff to effectively communicate and promote the vision, mission, priorities, and goals to internal and external communities – including through a vibrant web presence, conference, and meeting presentations.
• Identify and respond to other opportunities aligned with the goals of the Centre including bringing forward funding opportunities for consideration.
• Oversee grant writing activities including active participation in the process in support of the institution.
• Provide project management expertise and assistance in the development and implementation of high priority strategic initiatives; manage and execute projects through setting clear timelines and expectations regarding goals and expected outcomes.
• Advise and provide operational direction to the Director in identifying and assessing planning priorities, including the generation, and monitoring of workplans as appropriate.
• Participate in and support strategic planning and group discussions, including but not limited to leadership activities such as retreats as deemed appropriate.
• Facilitate smooth project operation, perform technical and analytical functions in selected projects, and work collaboratively with CHI team members, university and hospital staff, faculty, and other project stakeholders.
• Adopt a change management methodology for new policy implementation as directed by the Director. Ensure a proactive approach to addressing possible contentiousness in a constructive nature and be prepared to handle any difficult situations through conflict management strategies.
• Promote a team culture of inclusion and a sense of ownership among all CHI researchers, partners and participants, with a commitment to the university and hospital’s equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives designed to foster an inclusive, supportive, and welcoming work environment for individuals with diverse backgrounds and identities.
• Acts as the Director’s designate as authorized and required.

Financial Management
• Prepares, implements, and provides detailed analysis of the CHI budget including core facilities through forecasting, resource allocation, and account reconciliation.
• Prepares quarterly and annual financial reports for the Director and the Board.
• Manages an annual budget of more than $1 million (and growing).
• Complies and analyzes financial data to support operations; develops reports and provides recommendations on key financial issues and topics, as required.
• Formulate business cases to ensure secure funding for programs and initiatives.
• Oversee and support all Tri-Council statistical, operational, and financial reporting, and any compliance audits.
• Utilize the budget model as a framework for implementing the overall financial plan.

Facilities Management
• Serves as primary contact and liaison with external service providers as well as University and Hospital’s service departments (ITS, PPS, etc).
• In coordination with the Director, manages space allocation (offices, laboratories), furniture and furnishings, office equipment, physical maintenance of the building infrastructure.
• In coordination with the Director, manages all aspects of the building renovations including arranging for demolitions, restorations, and environmental assessments, proposing and overseeing architectural layouts, spaces analyses and implementation, and activity and priority planning.
• Implements and oversees CHI’s asset-tracking system.
• Provide high-level core facilities operational oversight.

Administrative, Operational, and External Leadership
• Oversee the development of Memoranda of Understanding and other agreements between partners to define roles and processes, in collaboration with Queen’s University and Kingston Health Sciences Centre’s research contracts units.
• Develop and oversee the Human Resources strategy for CHI in alignment with strategic objectives and required approvals with support from the central HR team.
• Build, develop and support a cohesive, interdependent, high performance and highly functional team of administrative and technical professionals.
• Plans, prioritizes and manages the work of employees, providing strategic and tactical advice, guidance and coaching. Identifies the need for staff resources, participates on staffing committees, and makes effective recommendations regarding employee selection.
• Manages performance by establishing performance standards, reviewing, and evaluating performance and conducting formal performance reviews on an ongoing basis.
• Assesses staff training and professional development needs and ensures that employees receive training required to improve and sustain successful performance.
• With the support of Human Resources investigates, addresses, and resolves employee/labour relations issues, including disciplinary matters. Makes effective recommendations on matters involving possible discipline, discharge, and probationary termination.
• Establish regular communication channels for stakeholders, members, and users through Annual General Meetings, email updates, etc.
• Acting as key leader of CHI with other international groups and stakeholders by representing CHI at national/international meetings.
• Builds relationships with similar groups/organizations both internally and externally.