Senior Specialist, Alumni Engagement and Community Partnerships

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Posting Reason:

Replacement of a regular position

Job Type:

Employee

Anticipated Duration in Months (for contracts and temporary assignments):

N/A

Job Family:

Advancement and Alumni Relations

# of Open Positions:

1

Faculty/Service - Department:

Telfer School of Management

Campus:

Main Campus

Union Affiliation:

SSUO

Date Posted (YYYY/MM/DD):

2026/03/16

Applications must be received BEFORE (YYYY/MM/DD):

2026/03/27

Hours per week:

35

Salary Grade:

SSUO Grade 11

Salary Range:

$90,987.00 - $114,932.00

About the Telfer School of Management
The Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa is located in the heart of Ottawa and is the proud academic home of some 4,300 students, 200 faculty members, over 100 staff members, and over 30,000 alumni. At Telfer, everything we do from teaching to research, to policy advice is firmly aligned with helping Canada reach its potential. We believe that better business practice means a better Canada and that a better Canada means a better world.

Position Purpose:

Reporting to the Director, Alumni Engagement and Community Partnerships, the Senior Specialist independently designs, plans, and executes strategic alumni and community engagement initiatives with the primary purpose of establishing and growing a strong culture of affinity among Telfer alumni and strategic community partners by creating meaningful, reciprocal value through connection, contribution, and learning. In addition to supporting institutional priorities, the role contributes to a vibrant alumni ecosystem by enabling opportunities for alumni to connect with one another, continue learning, and remain meaningfully engaged with the School over time.

The Senior Specialist plays an important role in supporting institutional objectives by proactively identifying, qualifying, and advancing alumni and partners through structured discovery conversations — including cold outreach, persuasive engagement, conflict management and complex stakeholder discussions — to assess interests, evaluate capacity and influence propensity aligned with opportunities in philanthropy, executive education, research collaboration, or continued experiential contribution, and by coordinating disciplined referrals with appropriate internal partners.

The role focuses on the qualification of alumni and partners and the development of multi-step, progression-based strategic engagement plans, activated through experiential education, strategically designed event platforms and recognition pathways that are structured to influence readiness and deepen institutional commitment. The Senior Specialist ensures engagement activity is intentional, sequenced, outcome-oriented, and aligned with Faculty priorities and broader advancement strategy.

In this role, your responsibilities will include:

• Engagement Portfolio Management: Manages assigned portfolios of alumni and external partners through sustained, trust-based relationships that build affinity and institutional connection, in alignment with Faculty priorities and engagement frameworks established by the Director.

• Qualification & Discovery (Non-Fundraising): Conducts proactive cold outreach and high-level discovery conversations to assess interests, expertise, availability, affinity, and readiness indicators. Engages senior leaders through persuasive dialogue, influence, negotiation, and real-time problem solving to secure participation and shape alignment with institutional priorities. Synthesizes insights to inform engagement planning, stewardship decisions, and lifecycle progression.

• Lifecycle-Based Engagement Planning & Activation: Develops and executes strategic engagement and stewardship plans for assigned alumni and partners, activating them through approved experiential, learning, event-based, and recognition pathways. Ensures engagement is intentional, repeatable, and progression-based rather than episodic.

• Readiness Identification & Institutional Handoffs: Identifies alumni and partners whose interests and readiness align with downstream institutional opportunities (e.g., philanthropy, executive education, research collaboration). Coordinates timely, documented handoffs with appropriate internal partners while maintaining stewardship continuity

• Faculty & Internal Partner Alignment: Works collaboratively with faculty, program teams, and internal units to align alumni and partner engagement with academic, experiential, and institutional needs, ensuring appropriate fit, quality, and impact. 

• Strategic Event Integration & Alumni Participation Design: Leads the strategic design of alumni and partner engagement at Faculty events, ensuring each initiative has a defined objective, target audience, and intended outcome aligned with Faculty priorities. Determines investment level based on strategic value and pipeline potential, and defines how participation should be structured (e.g., curated speakers, executive roundtables, VIP participation, targeted seating strategy) to ensure the right decision-makers and high-capacity stakeholders are present. Designs and shapes purpose-driven engagement experiences — including customized executive-level convenings — to strengthen long-term pathways in philanthropy, executive education, research collaboration, and strategic partnerships. Collaborates with Events and Advancement teams for logistical execution, while retaining responsibility for strategic intent, stakeholder composition, and outcome alignment.

• Stewardship Enablement, Briefings & Storytelling Contribution: Ensures alumni and partners are appropriately briefed and supported before engagements, and that post-engagement stewardship actions are completed. Contributes relationship insights, outcomes, and narratives to Marketing & Communications and internal stakeholders to support reputation-building and storytelling.

• Engagement Practice Quality, Documentation & Improvement: Maintains accurate documentation of engagement activity, insights, and next steps in institutional systems, supporting continuity, reporting, and pipeline visibility.

What you will bring:

• Undergraduate degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Minimum of five (5) years of progressive experience in alumni engagement, advancement, sales, account management, executive relations, partnerships, or a related field.

• Demonstrated experience managing a portfolio of relationships and advancing contacts through defined engagement or stewardship stages

• Proven ability to build, steward, and sustain relationships with senior leaders and high-profile stakeholders

• Strong discovery, listening, synthesis, and relationship assessment skills

• Ability to align external expertise and interests with academic and institutional priorities

• Experience with lifecycle or pipeline management, including prioritization, next-step planning, and follow-through

• Sound judgement, with strong organizational, prioritization, and moves-management skills

• Must be able to exercise professional discretion

• Experience working with CRM systems (e.g., Raiser’s Edge, Salesforce) to track relationship activity, progression, and outcomes

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and French

• Required to occasionally travel and work evenings or weekends

Key Competencies at uOttawa:
Here are the required competencies for all or our employees at uOttawa: 

Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.
Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.
Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.
Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.

The University of Ottawa embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are passionate about our people and committed to employment equity. We foster a culture of respect, teamwork and inclusion, where collaboration, innovation, and creativity fuel our quest for research and teaching excellence. While all qualified persons are invited to apply, we welcome applications from qualified Indigenous persons, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women and LGBTQIA2S+ persons. The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible, barrier-free work environment. The University is also committed to working with applicants with disabilities requesting accommodation during the recruitment, assessment and selection processes. Applicants with disabilities may contact hrtalentmanagement@uottawa.ca to communicate the accommodation need. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Note: if this is a union position: The hiring process will be governed by the current collective agreement related to the union affiliation noted above; you can click here to find out more.

If this is a front-line position with responsibilities to interact with students, selected candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Prior to May 1, 2022, the University required all students, faculty, staff, and visitors (including contractors) to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as defined in Policy 129 – Covid-19 Vaccination. This policy was suspended effective May 1, 2022 but may be reinstated at any point in the future depending on public health guidelines and the recommendations of experts.