Job Description

Title: Lead, Ecosystem Partnerships and Convening

Department: Philanthropy & Community

Reporting to: Lead, Community Power

Compensation: CAD 102,000 - CAD 131,000

Location: Remote - Canada (Candidates based in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia or willing to relocate)

Who We Are:

World Education Services (WES) is a non-profit social enterprise that supports the educational, economic, and social inclusion of immigrants, refugees, and international students. For 50 years, WES has set the standard for international academic credential evaluation, supporting millions of people as they seek to achieve their academic and professional goals. Through decades of experience as a leader in global education, WES has developed a wide range of tools to pursue social impact at scale. From evaluating academic credentials to shaping policy, designing programs, and providing philanthropic funding, we partner with a diverse set of organizations, leaders, and networks to uplift individuals and drive systems change. Together with its partners, WES enables people to learn, work, and thrive in new places. For more information about WES, please visit our website at www.WES.org.

About the Opportunity:

Reporting to the Lead, Community Power, within the Philanthropy & Community department, the Lead, Ecosystem Partnerships & Convening is responsible for building and stewarding strong, trust-based partnerships with immigrant-led organizations (ILOs) and grassroots leaders. The role leads how WES designs and delivers capacity-sharing and convening activities that strengthen partners’ leadership, readiness, and ability to engage in systems change work. This role translates partner insights into practical learning and convening approaches, ensures high-quality and inclusive experiences, and supports partners to participate as equal actors across the ecosystem. The role acts as the connective tissue between WES and ILO’s, immigrant leaders, and other stakeholders by maintaining trust, navigating complex relationships, and aligning community insights with broader organizational priorities through partnering closely with the Community Centering and Partnership team.

A key role the Lead will play is to develop and maintains the partners’ “readiness” to engage in systems change and learning frameworks, ensuring learning and evaluation practices are learning-oriented, non-extractive, and grounded in inclusion and cultural awareness. Through strategic insight, collaboration, and continuous learning, this role supports both partner success and internal alignment.

What You'll Do:

Trust-building and Relationship Management (35%)

• Lead the development and the maintenance of strength and trust-based and long-term relationships/partnerships with immigrant-led organizations, grassroots groups and community and place-based coalitions.
• Model and reinforce relational norms such as inclusion, reciprocity, transparency, and collaboration, and support the team's adoption of these norms through translating them into clear team practices.
• Serve as a senior relationship steward, demonstrating leadership presence, and influence, to maintain partnerships longevity.
• Oversee engagement rhythms, ensuring interactions are respectful, non-extractive, and aligned with partner capacity needs , and ensure consistent follow-through across the portfolio work.
• Sponsor and support onboarding and offboarding processes that promote clarity, inclusion, and continuous learning across relationships.

Strategy, planning, and learning and convening design ( 30%)

• Co-author the capacity-sharing and learning design, and innovative convening strategies with the Community Power Lead and Head of Philanthropy and Community, bringing strategic insight, entrepreneurial thinking, and strong collaboration to translate Community Power goals into a clear delivery plan.
• Lead the design and delivery of modular learning offerings, fostering teamwork and inclusion while setting quality standards for external consultants, and team members and coaching team members to deliver strong facilitation outcomes.
• Ensure field sensing and partner feedback are actively gathered and clearly communicated, using structured problem solving and adaptability to guide rapid iteration, in collaboration with internal teams when applicable.

Partner readiness measurement (20%)

• Develop, maintain, and continuously improve the framework and monitoring system for ILOs readiness to engage in systems change, ensuring indicators and outcomes reflect mission alignment, cultural awareness, and trust-based practices, and follow through with external partners.
• Establish a consistent learning and measurement rhythm, translating insights into practical improvements through strong decision making and process adjustment tactics.
• Provide guidance to their team and insights to other systems change teams’ leads on how capability gaps are being addressed.

Team management and internal coordination (15%)

• Manage staff, aligning work across teams toward shared goals and community-defined outcomes.
• Drive accountability by maintaining a strong focus on learning, impact, and results across internal and external partners.
• Provide strong supervision, mentorship, coaching, and performance management to direct reports.
• Provide functional oversight to the Initiative Lead, Community Readiness and Co-creation, ensuring operational execution aligns with Community Power strategy and that roles connections and collaboration requirements across the team are clear.
• Collaborate closely with internal partners to integrate readiness insights into broader strategy and planning.

Your Experience:

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in Community Development, Social Justice & Community Engagement, Adult Education & Community Development, or equivalent of education, and/or experience
• 8+ years of experience in community partnerships, ecosystem building , preferably within the philanthropic ecosystem supporting immigrant/community-based organizations, and groups.
• Leadership experience setting priorities, success measures, and translating strategy into execution plans through strong project management and team collaboration.
• Proven ability to lead and coach others, foster teamwork, inclusion, and high-quality outcomes with the ability to lead through others.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to actively communicate expectations, feedback, and complex ideas clearly.
• Experience establishing standards and quality assurance for convenings and learning experiences, with attention to inclusion and accessibility.
• Demonstrated facilitation skills and ability to oversee the design of learning environments that prioritize community capability over institutional "compliance."
• Strong decision-making and problem-solving skills, including knowing when to lead directly versus delegate.
• Demonstrated strength in relationship building and maintenance, particularly in navigating complex situations and sustaining trust.
• Experience planning and delivering convenings that are innovative, inclusive, and respectful of community capacity.
• High-level knowledge of adult-learning theories, Co-creation approaches, and Collective Impact frameworks/strategies as well as developmental and impact evaluation.
• High-level adaptability and learning orientation: ability to work with ambiguity, and emerging models, building feedback loops, and iterating based on learning to improve quality, consistency, and outcomes over time.
• Experience designing and producing convenings at scale (multi-stakeholder events, cross-regional cohorts), including accessibility and language access planning.
• Experience in philanthropy and/or trust-based grantmaking environments, including partnering with program and resource-equity teams.
• Deep commitment to immigrant justice, transparency, strength-based and trust-based approaches to working with communities.

Desired

• Experience navigating immigration systems in the US and/or Canada preferred
• Experience managing budgets and external partners, with strong organizational, relationship management, and planning skills.
• Experience working across the US and Canada and/or with geographically distributed partners; able to adapt approaches to local context and cultural considerations.
• Bilingual or multilingual communication skills relevant to partner communities (e.g., French/English or other languages).