Business Engagement Manager, Ravenspace

Staff - Non Union

Job Category

M&P - AAPS

Job Profile

AAPS Salaried - Business Development, Level C

Job Title

Business Engagement Manager, RavenSpace

Department

Acquisitions | UBC Press

Compensation Range

$6,677.33 - $10,433.50 CAD Monthly

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date

August 5, 2023

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the Posting End Date above.

Job End Date

Jun 30, 2025

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career

Summary

About RavenSpace

RavenSpace comprises a unique platform, suite of services, and team of passionate collaborators to publish digital resources that bring Indigenous peoples and audiences around the world an opportunity to share, learn, explore, and grow. These media rich publications promote reconciliation through knowledge sharing and will support Indigenous peoples in sharing their wisdom for the cultural health of future generations. We are building connections with organizations such as schools, libraries, cultural centres, and governments, who seek immersive learning opportunities and wish to join the RavenSpace community.

The Position

RavenSpace is poised to take flight. You will be joining a small, aspiring team with ambitious targets over the next three years as we launch our new programs and services. We are innovative and community-minded, and our decisions and actions are guided through relationship-building.

Drawing from a dynamic business plan, you will establish and implement comprehensive, leading-edge membership and partnership engagement strategies, to open new avenues of support and revenue for RavenSpace’s purpose and vision. Your skills in relationship-building, your ability to work collaboratively with Indigenous-led organizations, as well as your strategic mindset will be instrumental in establishing membership subscriptions and partnerships in support of RavenSpace’s publications, its authoring tools, its unique editorial-production expert services, and the ongoing development of its technical infrastructure.

This role requires both big-picture planning and the ability to execute strategies that will move our business sustainability agenda forward. You will identify and pursue opportunities to grow the RavenSpace community of supporters, recognize potential risks, serve as a trusted advisor, and demonstrate positive problem-solving and communication skills. Working within a cross-sectional team and external groups, you will contribute to the sustainability of cultural communication and create a solid foundation for lasting relationships that are mutually beneficial to RavenSpace and its supporters.

Organizational Status

RavenSpace is a part of UBC Press. Reporting to the Principal Investigator, the Business Engagement Manager (BEM) works with a cross-functional team to achieve coherence in overall strategic, engagement, and production plans and goals. May supervise contract support staff and students.

Work Performed

Business Engagement

• Creates mutually beneficial partnership proposals.
• Researches and meets with appropriate contacts in Indigenous, academic, cultural, and education markets to showcase RavenSpace’s offerings of products and services to activate memberships.
• Develops and implements a strategy to create revenue streams through membership subscriptions, licensing, and partnerships, securing agreements to meet revenue targets.
• Develops content packages and other marketing tools for the membership services offerings, course adoption agreements, and marketing materials suitable for presenting RavenSpace in diverse business contexts.
• Designs membership offerings, researching cost assessments, pricing strategies, and subscription membership models to advance models of access suitable to varying members’ and partners needs and expectations.
• Works with the technical team on implementing and testing platform solutions for access and distribution requirements, ensuring that they align with the cultural, production, and business goals.
• Builds and maintains market engagement workflows.
• Assesses distribution channels to understand the technical and policy requirements needed to enable members and partners to adopt RavenSpace as an authoring and publications platform.
• Identifies suitable partners with the expertise, skills, or resources to extend and enhance RavenSpace’s capabilities as a digital media publisher and educational resource developer, with particular attention to Indigenous-led businesses and services.

Audience Engagement

• Liaises with members and partners about matters concerning user satisfaction, which is a principal goal of RavenSpace.
• Aids in creating and coordinating public outreach and user events.
• Working in alignment with RavenSpace and UBC Press’s marketing methods, and guided by protocols for respectful exchange, manages the RavenSpace community-building brand/identity, website, social marketing, and media relations.

Business and Audience Analysis

• Collates and documents stakeholder and member responses to the RavenSpace business agreements.
• Gathers and documents stakeholder and member responses to RavenSpace as a suite of products and services.
• Designs and manages a suite of reports that track and analyze the financial performance of partnership activities.
• Sets, monitors, and reports regularly on key performance indicators of market development.
• Provides RavenSpace and UBC Press colleagues with regular updates on the status of market development.

Consequence of Error/Judgement

The Business Engagement Manager position is a critical the financial and reputational sustainability of RavenSpace. Poor comprehension or communication of RavenSpace’s goals and potential, could diminish and/or damage RavenSpace’s business opportunities with creators, communities, organizations, publishers, and likely stakeholders. A lack of judgement in decision-making could have an adverse impact on RavenSpace’s relationships and credibility, leading to the potential loss of significant revenue and a diminishment of RavenSpace’s reputation for engaging in a good way with its partners and audiences.

Supervision Received

The Business Engagement Manager reports to RavenSpace Principal Investigator and works collaboratively with the RavenSpace teams and UBC Press staff, as well as with other UBC units on occasion.

Supervision Given

The BEM may have a supervise students and interns.

Minimum Qualifications

Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. A minimum of six years related experience in an appropriate business specialization, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own.
• Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to negotiate contracts in accordance with organizational policies and procedures.
• Excellent relationship-building skills and superior negotiating skills.
• Five years recent, and direct, progressively responsible experience with business planning and development and/or audience engagement in an arts- or business-based context preferred.
• Ability to travel locally, regionally and nationally for client meetings.
• Strong analytical, research, and evaluation skills.
• Demonstrated financial acumen. Understanding of business and financial operations.
• Ability to call on all levels of an organization and build/maintain strong relationships with decision-makers in industry, government, community groups and industry associations.
• Demonstrated success in implementing a comprehensive strategic plan and skills to enact long-term sustainability strategies.
• A well-defined sense of diplomacy and ability to maintain confidentiality.
• Demonstrated ability to generate enthusiasm and successfully pitch new partnerships that increase revenues through producing leads.
• A degree with specialization in a relevant area such as business development, business administration, fundraising, or marketing and events management preferred.
• Broad facility with relevant computer programs and other technological tools (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, project management, and customer relationship management applications). Experience working with a centralized fundraising system an asset.
• Knowledge of educational publishing and open educational resource models is welcome.
• Experience writing successful funding applications to all levels of government, including large, complex, and multi-year applications.
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, and the ability to communicate appropriately and effectively with creators, communities, institutional customers, the educational sector, and others related to the business success of RavenSpace.