Vice-President, Development

Football Canada is the national governing body for amateur football in Canada, providing leadership in the development, growth, and promotion of the sport—from grassroots participation to high-performance competition.

Guided by its mission to lead the advancement of all football disciplines across the country, Football Canada is committed to increasing participation, strengthening the sport system, and developing Canadian athletes and teams capable of succeeding on the international stage.

With flag football set to make its Olympic debut at the Los Angeles 2028 Games, this is an exciting and transformative time for the sport in Canada. Football Canada is a high-performing organization driven by passion, precision, collaboration, and a relentless pursuit of excellence.

VICE-PRESIDENT, DEVELOPMENT

Reporting to the CEO, the Vice-President will lead, develop, and execute a Football Canada sport development and participation strategy that strengthens the long-standing tradition of tackle football and drives the rapid expansion of flag football nationwide. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, the Vice-President will direct all participation and amateur competition pathways, maintaining a strategic partnership with high-performance football to support the sport’s long-term growth. A key objective is to drive major participation growth in tackle and flag football through a future focused strategy that aligns with the high-performance pathway and leverages strong partnerships with all key sport partners of Football Canada within the Canadian football and sport ecosystem.

The VP and their team will cultivate and manage influential relationships with Provincial and Territorial Football Associations, USport, Sport Canada, IFAF, National Football Federations, and key customers, including coaches, officials, and other strategic football partners.

• Provide system integrated partnership leadership, with a primary focus on PTSO relationships, complemented by collaboration with USports and School Sport Canada and other key sport development partners
• Coach and officials’ certification and education
• Integrity programs including – safe sport, anti-doping, competition manipulation.
• Community football development
• Lead the development and growth of women and girls in football initiatives, complemented by additional EDI priorities that strengthen equity across the sport system.
• Compliance and governance
• Competitive structure and systems
• Program and Event Management including National tournaments.
• Support Football Canada’s Corporate Partnerships, Fund Development partners, Marketing, Communications and Digital strategies, while ensuring best-in-class servicing and partnership marketing support to actively promote football development in Canada.
• Support the development, alignment, and implementation of comprehensive national policies and processes from playground to podium.

Key external partnerships: Sport Canada, Coaching Association of Canada, IFAF, USports, Sport Integrity Canada, Canadian Women and Sport, National Football partners and key corporate partners.

Leadership Profile

A strategic business executive and leader with a passion for sport, strong knowledge of participation pathways, and extensive experience working with external partners. You bring a solid understanding of the Canadian sport system including coaching pathways and education, school-based sport programming, and municipal sport delivery which will be highly valuable in identifying growth opportunities and strengthening participation nationwide.

• University degree, Business or Sport Management
• 10+ years of progressive experience in sport or a related field
• Proven track record for delivering results and leading a multi discipline team
• Experience of designing a customer focused approach and delivery of transformational change projects
• Extensive experience designing and managing best in class national Sport Integrity framework and national policy suites.
• Exceptional team building and leadership skills.
• Proven sport technical, administrative, governance, and financial management abilities.
• Superior understanding of the interconnectedness of sport development strategy and high-performance sport system planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
• Experience leading multiple projects simultaneously and managing multiple stakeholder needs towards impactful and successful conclusions.
• Outstanding leadership with high emotional intelligence and ability to enthuse and inspire
• Authoritative, effective, articulate, and tactful
• Strong communicator
• Ability to influence and quickly gain credibility with multi disciplined disparate teams
• Strong analytical skills and disciplined thinker
• Excellent presentation skills
• Bilingualism (English and French) is a strong asset.

Location

The position is remotely based within Ontario or Quebec