DELIVERY LEAD, AI-NATIVE INCUBATOR

Business Development Bank of Canada; Montreal (administrative region); On-site; CAD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

BDC is launching an AI-native incubator to reimagine how banking serves Canadian entrepreneurs. The Delivery Lead sits in the room for decisions with the head of the incubator, ensures plans are understood, and that nothing important lives only in one person’s head.

The role translates incubator work into business cases, briefing notes, and executive updates that survive finance, risk, legal, and communications. You’ll keep cadence and map who must say yes.

Job description

We are banking at another level. Choosing BDC as your employer means working in a healthy, inclusive, and skilled workplace that puts forward the best conditions to bring together unique teams where employees are empowered to act. It also means being at the centre of ambitious economic and financial projects to see further and to do things differently, to fuel the success of Canadian entrepreneurs. Choosing BDC as your employer also means: Flexible and competitive benefits, including an Employee Savings and Investment Plan where BDC matches part of your voluntary contributions, a Defined Benefit Pension Plan, a $750 wellness and health care spending account, to name a few In addition to paid vacation each year, five personal days, sick days as necessary, and our offices are closed from December 25 to January 1 A hybrid work model that truly balances work and personal life Opportunities for learning, training and development, and much more... Explore the BDC Way in our Culture Book

Canada is experiencing a period of intense economic and technological change that won't wait for traditional timelines. To adapt, BDC is founding a new AI-native incubator with the mission to discover new ways to support Canadian entrepreneurs. At the incubator, our goal isn't to study the future, it's to create it. To do this, we are recruiting a small team of experienced AI-native builders who will work on a blank canvas to reimagine how banking for small and medium-sized businesses works. We sit at the intersection of strategy, technology, and execution. We work with startup speed, challenge existing assumptions, and focus on delivering practical outcomes that will meaningfully change how BDC serves entrepreneurs. You will be joining a team with strong executive sponsorship and a mandate to experiment, learn quickly, and turn promising ideas into real solutions. Our success will not be measured by how many ideas we generate; it will be measured by the value we create for employees, clients, and Canadian businesses. In this role, the Delivery Lead is in the room for most of what matters, and owns what happens after the room empties. Half the job is making the incubator's work legible to the rest of the organisation. The other half is making sure the incubator finishes what its accountable for. Your voice and your opinions will matter. You will be expected to use them in front of our stakeholders and some of the most senior positions of the organisation.

What you'll own

The room. You're in most meetings with the head of our AI-Native Incubator. You leave with the decisions, the owners, and the dates. Nothing important lives only in one person's head.

Translation. Turn what the incubator is building into business cases, briefing notes, and executive updates that survive contact with finance, risk, legal, and communications.

Delivery cadence. Keep the team shipping against a plan. You're not the tech lead and you're not writing the code, but nothing slips quietly on your watch.

Internal navigation. Map who needs to say yes, get to them early, and keep partner business units warm between asks.

Proxy authority. Represent the incubator when the head of this project is not there.

Saying no. Track what we've committed to versus what we can actually absorb and communicate when the honest answer is no.

Feel free to challenge ideas.

Evidence. Track what the incubator's work is actually producing so we can defend it with numbers instead of enthusiasm.

Who you are

Comfortable being the second-most-senior person in a room and the most prepared one.

Fluent in both operating cultures: startup pace and institutional process. You can tell which one a given problem needs.

Fully bilingual (you'll write and present in both languages, not just understand them).

Low ego about credit, high standards about follow-through.

Genuinely interested in Canadian entrepreneurs. This work only matters if it reaches them.

Background that fits

At least 10 years in strategy, consulting, corporate development, or operations leadership. MBA is a fit but not required. Has worked adjacent to technical teams without being an engineer (you can hold your own on architecture tradeoffs without pretending to design them). Experience inside a regulated or public-sector institution, or a strong reason you'll adapt fast to one. Track record with founder-type leaders who generate more ideas than any team can absorb.Keeps their shape under pressure when priorities collide, timelines move, and the team needs clarity instead of noise. Builds cross-functional partnerships before they are urgently needed and keeps them strong between asks. Can work a stakeholder map with judgement, diplomacy, and enough backbone to negotiate real trade-offs. Adapts quickly when the business need, the process, or the technology changes mid-flight.

What makes this hard

We're a new team inside an institution that predates all of us. You'll spend real time on internal alignment that doesn't look like progress and is. The incubator's credibility gets built in small, unglamorous increments.

Proudly one of Canada's Top 100 Employers and one of Canada's Best Diversity Employers, we are committed to fostering a diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible environment where all employees can thrive and feel empowered to bring their whole selves to work. If you require an accommodation to complete your application, please do not hesitate to contact us at [e-mail]. While we appreciate all applications, we advise that only the candidates selected to participate in the recruitment process will be contacted. BDC is a bank unlike any other. We are the only bank dedicated exclusively to the development of Canadian businesses. The only institution whose purpose is to promote the growth of the Canadian economy by focusing on the success of small and medium-sized businesses, with a human touch and a genuine presence. At BDC, we're changing people's and businesses' lives for the better. That's what makes us unique as a bank. That's why we are banking at another level.