Work In Tech

We are Koru.

Koru is a first of its kind venture studio funded by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. We partner with OTPP portfolio companies to build and invest in businesses with a clear right to win.

Founded in 2019, our mission is to drive value creation aimed at growing the overall value of OTPP’s portfolio companies by partnering with them to identify, validate, build and oversee new disruptive businesses. We go from 0-1, building ventures that address customer frictions head-on — and we leverage our corporate partnerships to gain unfair advantages in the market.

We offer a unique balance of risk and reward where startup talent can build with the backing of a $250B pension plan and the ability to impact portfolio companies all around the world, explore disruptive new opportunities and share in the upside of every business we put into the market. We promote a truly entrepreneurial mindset and a culture of fearless reinvention.

As Venture CPO, you will have a unique opportunity to be exposed to a wide array of industries, and be a vital voice around the decision-making table, especially around product, but also around all areas of the businesses you’ll launch. Since 2019, we’ve launched 9 ventures across a broad array of industries and problem spaces - take a look at our portfolio of ventures to see for yourself.

If you get excited by building innovative products that allow new entrants to disrupt existing industries, enjoy working in a collaborative and dynamic startup environment, have an entrepreneurial spirit, and have developed strong product leadership chops, then your place may be with us!

As Venture CPO, you will:

• Build a strong venture team culture that emphasizes best-in-class product management and design practices
• Enjoy working in a diverse, dynamic, collaborative, transparent, environment where everyone's ideas and opinions are equally valued
• Define a product strategy and roadmap for the new ventures you build
• Effectively prioritize and define product features so that Engineering, Design, Growth, and Business Operations and others can collaboratively & efficiently build and execute
• Be scrappy! We operate in small, cross functional venture teams; this means you’ll need to be able to jump between the strategic and the executional on a regular basis
• Gain a deep understanding of the industry you are operating in; you’ll need to be able to walk in the shoes of every stakeholder in any given value chain
• Champion agile practices that provide a foundation for iterative product development in response to key insights from customer validation
• Generate buy-in for the product strategy with stakeholders including the executive team, board members and investors
• Cross-pollinate good practices and insights between multiple ventures to drive continuous improvement of our product team at Koru

You should have:

• 10+ years of delivering successful and innovative products that customers love
• 5+ years hands-on leadership
• An ability to coach, mentor, enable and unblock others on the team to deliver great results
• An ability to work alongside Business Operations and Growth team members to develop GTM strategies for new business and products
• An ability to operate at various depths, for both strategically at the high level, as well as diving deep into execution mode as needed
• An orientation towards building for customer and businesses outcomes, not features
• An ability to make decisions in the face of a lot of ambiguity - you will need to go from 0-1
• An ability to establish and communicate research objectives, collect and analyze user behavior and leverage a number of research tools to extract the key insights needed to determine your product strategy (we spend a lot of time researching and validating before making investments and building ventures).
• Tech savviness, with experience working alongside dev teams building on different platforms & technologies, such as web and mobile apps, SaaS, big data and/or AI and ML powered platforms
• Real passion for understanding and solving customer frictions through simple and effective products and experiences
• An ability to embrace and reduce uncertainty through continual validated learning
• A data driven mindset. You know where to find the right insights to make an informed decision
• An ability to communicate your vision and effectively influence stakeholders, with the ability to know when to negotiate and make tradeoffs to get to the end goal

It would be nice if you have:

• Experience in building completely new products from 0-1
• Experience being the first product hire at a startup
• Experience in research, design or entrepreneurship

What happens next?

Once we review your application, if we’d like to move you forward in the process, here’s what you can expect from our hiring process:

Step 1: Introductory Interview w/ Hiring Lead (30 minutes)

Step 2: Coach/Direct Manager (45 minutes)

Step 3: Practical Challenge (~3-4 hours preparation + 60 minute presentation)

Step 4: 2-3 x 2:1 Team Interviews (30-45 minutes each allowing you to meet different members of the team across various domains)*

Step 5: Candidate Debrief

Step 6: Offer

*Steps 3 & 4 are typically scheduled within a 48-72 hour period of time.

Total Rewards at Koru.

Our total rewards package is balanced, flexible, inclusive, and fair which makes it a key part of our employer value proposition. We regularly review and update our total rewards, taking into account best practices, industry trends, and feedback from our team. Currently, our total rewards package is inclusive of:

• Cash compensation made up of 1) competitive base salary 2) annual bonus 3) company-matched RRSP and 4) participation in our equity program
• Comprehensive health benefits, including:
• • Group insurance
  • A flexible healthcare spending account
  • Fitness benefit
  • Mindfulness benefit
• Generous paid time off including vacation, sick, and a parental leave top-up.
• Other benefits include:
• • Mobile phone reimbursement
  • Education benefit

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Diversity of perspectives and experience is at the core of how we approach disruption and innovation. We believe in fostering an environment where team members of all backgrounds can feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work every day. We aim to ensure all of our employees work in an environment that makes them feel valued, heard and supported while they strive towards career pursuits and their personal and professional growth.

We are committed to providing accommodations for all candidates that require them and in all aspects of the recruitment, selection, and/or assessment process. If you are selected to participate in any part of the selection and/or assessment process, please inform us of any accommodation(s) that you may require.

Our location.

Koru’s offices are located in downtown Toronto. We humbly acknowledge that Koru HQ is located on land that is the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, Chippewa (Anishinaabeg), Haudenosaunee, and Wendat. This territory is covered by the ‘Toronto Purchase: Treaty 13’ which was the surrender of the lands from the Mississaugas of the Credit to the British Crown initially in 1787.

Koru staff and/or board members are made up of settlers, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, or a combination thereof. Our roots lie in continents across the world and we are grateful for the opportunity to share this land where we work and live.

Please note that this role is hybrid and requires the selected candidate to travel to Koru HQ in Toronto, Ontario as and when required by the company. Additionally, all individuals considered for this role are required to be legally eligible to work in Canada.

We’re flattered that you’d like to join our team, but only applicants selected to proceed in the hiring process will be contacted.