President/Senior Leader

CANCollaborate

PRESIDENT/SENIOR LEADER LEVEL POSITION

The Opportunity

CANCollaborate is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit working to accelerate scientific progress by improving how researchers, institutions, innovators, funders, and other stakeholders communicate, coordinate, and collaborate.

Scientific research represents an enormous investment of money, expertise, and human effort. Yet structural and institutional barriers often make it difficult for researchers and organizations to share knowledge, coordinate their work, identify complementary efforts, and build effectively on what others have learned. The consequences include unnecessary duplication, missed opportunities for collaboration, inefficient use of funding, and delays in scientific discovery.

CANCollaborate exists to address these barriers. We develop platforms, infrastructure, partnerships, and initiatives that make the research ecosystem more connected, transparent, and effective.

We are seeking an entrepreneurial, mission-driven President (Senior Leader level person) to lead CANCollaborate through its next stage of development. This is a hands-on leadership opportunity for someone who can translate an ambitious vision into funded programs, successful partnerships, and measurable results.

Reporting to the Chair of the Board, the President will have broad responsibility for strategy, fundraising, partnerships, program development and execution, operations, communications, and organizational growth. The President will initially lead a small, entrepreneurial organization and will play a central role in determining what CANCollaborate becomes.

The Mission

Our mission is to increase the effectiveness and impact of the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in research each year.

Better communication and coordination can reduce unnecessary duplication, improve access to knowledge and expertise, connect researchers with resources and collaborators, and help investigators avoid preventable delays and costly mistakes. By addressing systemic obstacles to collaboration, CANCollaborate seeks to shorten the path from inquiry to discovery—and from discovery to meaningful scientific, medical, and technological advances.

Near-Term Priority: Launching the MTDUA Platform

CANCollaborate's immediate operating priority is the launch and adoption of its Material Transfer and Data Use Agreement (MTDUA) platform.

The President will lead the effort to bring the platform successfully to market, with particular responsibility for fundraising, institutional partnerships, stakeholder engagement, and overcoming barriers to adoption. The President will also help shape the platform's strategy and evolution as its network and capabilities grow.

The MTDUA platform is intended not simply as a stand-alone initiative, but as a foundation from which CANCollaborate can develop additional ways to connect researchers, institutions, resources, and information.

Building the Next Generation of Initiatives

Beyond the MTDUA platform, the President will lead the development, funding, and execution of additional initiatives designed to address persistent barriers to scientific collaboration and progress. Potential areas include:

• Connecting researchers with samples and data. Using the MTDUA network and information generated through previously executed agreements to help investigators who need research materials or data identify institutions and researchers able to provide them.
• Building collaboration networks. Creating ways for researchers to identify peers, projects, expertise, and resources across institutions and disciplines, facilitating new collaborations and accelerating the formation of research consortia.
• Increasing visibility into ongoing research. Developing searchable information about current, pending, and proposed research projects so that investigators and funders can identify overlapping efforts, coordinate complementary work, and pursue collaboration where appropriate.
• Learning from unsuccessful and inconclusive research. Developing practical mechanisms through which negative, unsuccessful, or inconclusive findings can be shared and used, allowing researchers to learn from prior work rather than unknowingly repeat it.
• Addressing barriers to promising research. Convening researchers, ethicists, regulators, funders, patient advocates, and other stakeholders to examine regulatory, ethical, scientific, and funding obstacles that may impede worthwhile research. In medicine, for example, this could include approaches to repurposing existing drugs and therapies, individualized or bespoke treatment strategies, and research involving combinations of therapies that are difficult to evaluate under conventional models.
• Developing new approaches to research finance. Exploring financing structures and incentives for research that advances the public interest, particularly in areas where traditional government, philanthropic, or commercial funding models do not adequately support promising work.

These initiatives illustrate CANCollaborate's broader ambition. The President will not simply administer a predetermined portfolio, but will help identify where CANCollaborate can have the greatest impact and determine which opportunities the organization should pursue.

The President's Role

The President will serve as CANCollaborate's senior executive and principal external representative. Key responsibilities will include:

• Strategy and execution: Set organizational priorities and translate them into focused, achievable programs with clear objectives, accountable leadership, committed partners, sustainable resources, and measurable outcomes.
• Fundraising and financial strategy: Develop and execute a comprehensive fundraising strategy spanning individual philanthropy, foundations, grants, institutional partnerships, sponsorships, and innovative funding models.
• Partnership development: Build and steward relationships with research institutions, investigators, foundations, corporations, government agencies, advocacy organizations, donors, and other strategic partners.
• Program leadership: Lead the development, funding, launch, and evaluation of CANCollaborate initiatives, including technology platforms, convenings, and other approaches to advancing the organization's mission.
• External leadership: Serve as a persuasive and credible ambassador for CANCollaborate, building awareness of its mission and attracting partners, users, supporters, and funding.
• Organizational leadership: Develop budgets and operating plans in partnership with the Board and build the people, systems, and capabilities required as the organization grows.
• Team leadership: Recruit and manage a high-performing combination of staff, consultants, advisors, and collaborators while maintaining the agility and resourcefulness of an entrepreneurial organization.

This is a hands-on role. The President should be comfortable moving between high-level strategy and practical execution, building relationships with senior institutional leaders one day and working through the details of an emerging initiative the next.

The Candidate

We are looking for an entrepreneurial leader who is energized by difficult, systemic problems and comfortable building in an environment where not every answer—or even every future initiative—has been determined in advance.

The strongest candidates will bring many of the following:

• A record of entrepreneurial, resourceful, hands-on leadership, including experience building organizations, initiatives, or partnerships with limited initial resources.
• Demonstrated success in fundraising, business development, grant development, strategic partnerships, or a combination of these.
• Experience taking complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives from concept through funding and execution.
• Significant leadership experience in scientific research, technology, innovation, nonprofit management, philanthropy, alliance management, or a related field.
• An understanding of scientific and academic research and the institutional, financial, and organizational dynamics that shape collaborative science and innovation.
• Exceptional relationship-building and facilitation skills, including the ability to bring together stakeholders with different priorities and perspectives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to articulate an ambitious mission in a credible and compelling way.
• The judgment to distinguish promising ideas from distractions and focus limited organizational resources where they can have the greatest impact.
• Comfort operating in an entrepreneurial environment that requires flexibility, initiative, persistence, and a willingness to wear multiple hats.

An advanced degree in a scientific, research, technical, legal, business, public-policy, or related discipline is preferred. Equivalent experience will be considered.

Compensation, Location, and Travel

Compensation is flexible and will be competitive with organizations of comparable size and stage, taking into account the successful candidate's experience, expertise, and qualifications.

The position may be performed remotely within the United States, with regular availability for collaboration during Eastern Time business hours.

Travel may be required for Board meetings, donor cultivation, institutional and partner engagement, conferences, workshops, and other activities important to CANCollaborate's mission and growth.

Equal Opportunity

CANCollaborate is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome candidates whose backgrounds, experiences, expertise, and perspectives will strengthen our organization and our ability to advance scientific progress in the public interest.

401(k) and other benefits as appropriate