Purpose of role

Reporting to the CFO, the Operations Manager will support the day-to-day operations, reporting, and administration of the CACHE competitions and support the logistical needs of the team and network of partners, funders, and participants in the CACHE program from the broader computational chemistry and machine learning communities. They will engage with companies and academic institutions participating on CACHE (Critical Assessment of Computational Hit-Finding Experiments) projects, monitoring these projects’ progress, and ensuring reporting and other funding requirements are met.

Within the first year, the Operations Manager will:

• Act as a liaison between CACHE team & Conscience. Operations Manager will be the main contact point between CACHE team and Conscience. They will establish a strong line of communication to ensure smooth flow of information, effective and informed decision-making, and meeting strategic initiatives.
• Improve the existing Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for CACHE. Develop an understanding of the current CACHE processes for developing, launching, and delivering a challenge, including design, promotion, selections, governance, and operations. Improve & implement a SOP introducing improvements and efficiencies where possible to support the team and partners most effectively.

Duties and responsibilities

Program management

• Create and update application forms, application guidelines, and evaluation guidelines as needed.
• Liaise with applicants: respond to their inquiries, track and guide them through the process, set them up with what they need.
• Coordinate and schedule review and selection process
• Review applications for completeness and eligibility requirements
• Streamline the review process including compiling scores, recommendations, comments, and rankings of reviewed applications and write a report to the management board to guide their selection of projects.
• Develop a project performance-review process to evaluate progress against established goals.
• Act as a secretary to support the CACHE governing Board and its Committees
• Manage and update the CACHE website.

Finance and operations

• Liaise with all program stakeholders and collect information from participants/hub to compose consolidated quarterly progress reports to be submitted to the government.
• Plan, monitor and track project expenses and validate financial reports and budgets with ProgramLead/CFO, ensuring alignment with overall budget.
• Develop and implement standardized package for financial management of the program including standard KPIs, budgets and goals.
• Support processes for sending, evaluating, and signing participant agreements
• Assist with grant auditing requirements as needed.

Communication and reporting

• Maintain contact with participants for early identification and resolution of issues, and to identify communications opportunities to share successes and/or promote events.
• Organize and conduct annual performance benefits (grant) reporting exercise with CACHE participants/hub.
• Prepare summaries and briefing materials on project activities as needed.
• Support communications and promotion, including outreach to email lists, website updates, and managing comms contractors and web developers as required

Strategic support

• Strong collaboration and partnership - maintain and enhance effective cross-functional business partnerships (working with CFO and CACHE team).
• Assist with special projects, such as strategic planning, events and symposia, process improvement initiatives, and development of relevant policies and guidelines, as they arise and as required.
• Assist program management and development team with fundraising and grant writing. Prepare additional written and verbal materials as requested.

Experience and training

• A minimum of 3 years of experience with program and operations management, including activities such as grant applications, assessing project viability, performance measurement, budgeting, contract management, finance operations, or reviewing financial reports.
• Experience with program or project management. Specific to scientific and/or engineering research context would be an asset.
• Familiarity with funding agency rules with experience in grant proposal and report writing (especially matching funds/government research infrastructure programs) would be an asset.

Skills and qualifications

• University degree in a relevant field (e.g. Business Administration, Commerce, or equivalent) or equivalent experience.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or certification in process. Specific to scientific and/or engineering research context would be an asset.
• Strong communication skill and ability to manage multiple stakeholders.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Proficiency in MS Excel.
• Proficient with managing and organizing large amounts of data.
• Effective time management; able to prioritize work and meet deadlines.
• Able to work effectively in a dynamic team environment (working both independently and as part of a small team).
• Fluent in English; Proficiency in French (written and spoken) an advantage.

Job environment

The Conscience team works virtually in a remote environment built around Slack, Zoom, collaborative docs, and email, along with structured in-person time as needed (regular staff retreats, working meetings). We do not have a central office. We provide every employee with the essential work tools like a laptop and other peripherals. Remote work allows for some work hour flexibility, which is helpful when managing life commitments and family. Most roles include some travel as needed.

We offer a competitive salary with benefits (medical, dental, vision and an RRSP matching program through Sunlife) and a generous time off policy.

While we’re legally based in Canada, our approach to drug discovery and science is global. We believe that collaboration can happen in every corner of the world, from the most established leaders to also the most unlikely of partners. With that in mind, we invite candidates from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences, including those from historically marginalized or underestimated groups — women, indigenous people, people with disabilities, people of colour, formerly incarcerated people, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or gender nonconforming, first and second generation immigrants, and people from low-income families. A diversity of lived experiences makes our work, and our network community, stronger.

Salary and benefits

The salary range for this position is $65,000 to $85,000 CAD, to be determined by the successful candidate’s relevant skills, training, and experience. In addition, we offer a competitive benefits package that includes enhanced medical, pharmacare, dental, and disability coverage, along with annual matched RRSP contributions. We provide a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation annually, plus flexible work hours, as part of a hybrid work environment.

About Conscience

Conscience is a Canadian non-profit based in Toronto, launched with support from the Structural Genomics Consortium, and a $49M grant from the Canadian government. We narrow in on areas of market failure – places where traditional models have left people behind with few options, and not enough support, like rare diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and pandemic preparedness.

Conscience will focus on two things:

• A global approach to open science that will bring new medicines forward for communities that otherwise would be left behind; and,

• Advancing the infrastructure to make AI a viable tool for drug discovery, using a competitive model that will benchmark predictions in the lab and share data openly.

Together, we think those two things can make medicines more accessible and affordable.

We’re creating incentives to attract attention and investment in neglected areas that often go unnoticed due to market failures. The end result will be more and faster innovation in AI drug discovery, new medicines, and more equitable access to medicines for everyone, across Canada, and around the world.

About CACHE

The goal of CACHE is to set the stage for a technological breakthrough in computer-based drug design by providing unbiased, high quality experimental feedback on otherwise untested designs from AI experts and computational chemists around the world.

CACHE initiates a new technical drug design challenge every four months to benchmark computational methods. Participants use their computational method to predict molecules that are tested experimentally by CACHE. Each challenge involves two cycles of predictions in order to give participants the opportunity to incorporate learnings from the first round into their designs. At the end of each challenge, CACHE releases all data openly, including chemical structures, to the public.