About the job
Desjardins Group is the largest cooperative financial group in Canada, and one of the largest employers in the country. It offers a full range of financial products and services and is home to a wealth of expertise in property and casualty insurance, life and health insurance, wealth management, services for businesses of all sizes, securities brokerage, asset management, venture capital, and secure, leading-edge virtual access methods.
Job Level NV11 – A
As a Senior Advisor, Sales and Business Development, you work with the Vice President of business development for financial cooperative outside Quebec, critical to the expansion of our business across Canada. As a member of the Acquisition, Growth and Development division supporting Ontario, Atlantic and Western Canada, you support the mandate to grow our footprint and increase Desjardins’ presence and visibility across the country. You identify organic growth opportunities and, respecting the multiple distribution channel environment, present Desjardins’ products and services to B2B clients, business partners and organizations based on member/client needs and current strategies and practices. Demonstrating exceptional relationship management, you serve as a liaison, developing close ties with specific Desjardins sectors or business units. Taking a proactive, professional approach, your responsiveness and experience instills momentum and results in the development of cross-organizational business and market presence.
You take the lead on business development initiatives, events and activities that involve and impact multiple business sectors. You apply a strategic mindset in the selection, planning, and execution of events and market development activities aimed to grow our brand and revenue while contributing to tasks at all levels to a successful outcome and working collaboratively with a diverse team of business development stakeholders.
You draw on your networking skills and interpersonal savvy to develop and maintain business partnerships with important clients who have complex, diverse needs. You analyze highly complex problems and develop and implement personalized solutions tailored to client needs.
You serve as specialist and resource person for your unit, members and clients and represent your unit before decision-making bodies. You help represent Desjardins and enter the organization into important agreements with clients.
In this fast-paced environment, you affect the trajectory of growth across all lines of business, and you are integral to the planning and execution of proposals and programs that will increase our market share and brand awareness.
You have strategic thinking skills, build partnerships easily and work with others to achieve shared objectives. Highly developed interpersonal skills are therefore essential.
Role Overview
As a Senior Advisor, reporting to the Vice-President, Business Development, Financial Cooperatives Outside Quebec, you will develop and manage initiatives to:
- Support an exciting mandate to strategically grow Desjardins’ market share and brand visibility across Ontario, Atlantic and Western Canada
- Develop a pipeline of cross-sector growth opportunities working in conjunction with the Pan Canadian business development committee
- Present cross-selling prospects and recommend an approach for joint offers
- Identify existing synergies to maximize the potential of Desjardins’ major accounts and actively pursue new mutually beneficial agreements
- Participate in the submission of RFPs for the B2B business development portfolio – developing material, researching and writing proposal content
- Support business development activities including event planning and execution, conference and tradeshow participation, and creation of new tools, databases, shared resources, and best practices
- Represent and engage Desjardins within the framework of agreements with partners or external organizations always ensuring professional and responsive engagement with clients
- Organize material for meetings with major clients capitalizing on our ONE Desjardins objective and approach
- Act as an intermediary in initial discussions between managers and specialists in business sectors and clients
- Represent your unit on various committees made up of senior management and on decision-making bodies including the Pan Canadian Leadership Team and its sub-committees as required
- Establish growth measures, document objectives, and provide regular reporting on results of the action plan
- Build and maintain connections with lines of business that represent growth levers in OAW
- Monitor the industry to understand and anticipate trends in your specialty area and make recommendations
- Drive continual improvements in workspace / process / technology to enable highest efficiency.
You are an excellent communicator, a generous listener, analytical and organized. You will work with all areas of the organization. Coordination is critical, so you frequently interact with stakeholders working in a wide range of other fields. Interpersonal savvy is essential.
How You Work
You engage with purpose to find the right solutions and go the extra mile, because it is the right thing to do. You enjoy making sense of, gathering, and restructuring information to build initiatives from a variety of sources. You are confident in your ability to communicate detailed information in an impactful way and know that collaboration can transform a good idea into a great one. You understand the power of an inclusive team that enjoys working together towards a shared vision. Your influence makes an impact because you know that relationships and networks are essential to success.
What you’ll bring to this role
- Excellent interpersonal relations, verbal and written communication skills, ability to work on the ground floor through senior levels, and with conflicting views and opinions.
- Ability to use analysis, experience, and judgment to develop meaningful insights and recommendations
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with sometimes ambiguous, unpredictable circumstances or changes, and comfortable making informed decisions without all the information.
- High degree of detail orientation with the ability to research and analyze, transforming information into actionable insights and processes
- Autonomy, initiative, judgment, and known for teamwork
- The ability to synthesize and make sense of large volumes of information
Additional Responsibilities
- Work closely with our partners to understand business requirements and facilitate solution discussions to ensure you meet project needs.
- You build strong relationships, lead discussions, listen and ask the right questions to ensure our work meets requirements.
- Maintain a collaborative work environment and support Desjardins team members to optimize and reach our partners goals.
- Maintain lasting, personal business relationships with important partners to promote services
- Manage accounts by serving as the link between partners and the organization and ensuring that partners have the products and services they need, are using them correctly, and are satisfied with them.
- Recommend strategies and solutions to meet targets, such as sound risk management, portfolio profitability and improved business relationships
- identify and analyze members/partner’s needs; develop custom solutions; prepare integrated service offers that balancemember/partner satisfaction, profitability and risk; and negotiate terms
- Watch for business opportunities that would add a competitive edge to existing products and services.
- Take an active role in public relations activities and maintain a presence in the Canadian cooperative community.
Other Working Conditions
- Number of jobs available: 1
- This position may work remotely from a location in Canada.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Management or in a related field or experience as noted
- A minimum of eight years’ experience in preferably a combination of operational, partner facing, process management, marketing, customer success and/or stakeholder engagement fields, preferably in the credit card or payments industry
- Credit union or banking experience preferred
- Bilingual (French and English) is essential
Please note that other combinations of qualifications and relevant experience may be considered
Specific knowledge
- Demonstrated ability to learn and succeed in a fast-paced high change environment
- Strong verbal and written communication and presentation skills
- Superior skills using MS Office tools, particularly PowerPoint and Teams
- The ability to clearly convey concepts and services internally and to partners
- Strong interpersonal and relationship management within a cross functional environment
- Proven ability to set priorities, meet goals, work independently, and to contribute to a team effort
- Proven problem solving and analytical skills
- Proven organizational and time management skills and the ability to handle multiple tasks and prioritize duties
Desjardins Cross-sector Skills
Action oriented, Collaborates, Customer Focus, Innovation
Key competencies for the job
Business insight, communicates effectively, Organized, Strategic mindset
Work Location
Currently work from home, aligned with the nearest Desjardins office (Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal)
