Industry Strategy Lead - Supplier Ecosystem

About CoLab

At CoLab, we help mechanical engineering teams bring life-changing products to market years sooner.
We build AI for engineers designing cars, medical devices, and jet engines. Products this complex aren't sketched and sent to production. Teams spend months on iterations, reviews, and tests, predicting how every part performs before anything is built. CoLab is where those reviews happen, and we capture the rationale behind every change. Other tools show what changed between versions. Only CoLab knows why. That's how our AI helps manufacturers like Bobcat, Triumph Motorcycles, and GE Appliances make better decisions, eliminate rework cycles, and get to market faster.

Proudly based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, CoLab started with one customer in 2018. Since then we’ve raised a $72M Series C, been named the 57th fastest growing company in North America by Deloitte (Fast 500™), signed multi-year AI partnerships with companies like Bombardier, and grown to a team of 250+.

About The Role 
This role is a high-leverage operator reporting into the Director of Industry Strategy & Transformation, with direct exposure to revenue leadership and account owners. This role exists to define and scale CoLab’s supplier ecosystem strategy, building the repeatable go-to-market motion that links OEMs with their Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers so that every strategic account is connected to the network behind it.
This is a customer-facing, go-to-market, and product-influencing role. The right person is part strategist, part operator, part competitor. Someone who can read a room of executives, build a hyper compelling value case on the fly, see the supply network sitting behind the account in front of them, and close out the next step before the meeting ends.

Job Responsibilities

• Define and own CoLab’s supplier ecosystem strategy, a scalable and repeatable go-to-market motion for how design collaboration extends from our customers into their Tier 1 and Tier 2 supply base and how that network compounds value for every company connected to it.
• Shape how the supplier motion is packaged, priced, and resourced, partnering with product, revenue leadership, and finance to define what suppliers get, how they buy, and which teams own each stage from first connection to expansion.
• Map the supply networks behind strategic accounts, identifying which suppliers carry the most design dependency, where feasibility, RFQ, DFM, tooling, and PPAP handoffs break down, and where the cost of that friction lands on each side.
• Build the value case in both directions, why an OEM should bring its suppliers into CoLab and why a supplier should want to be there, grounded in quote quality, no-bid visibility, cycle time, rework, and launch risk.
• Package supplier and network strategy plays that prospecting, BDR, and customer success teams can run without you in the room, from target lists drawn from customer supply networks to outreach angles by tier and expansion sequences for CS.
• Spot where connected suppliers and adjacent customers become new opportunities, and build the motion that turns a supplier’s first seat in someone else’s workspace into its own enterprise relationship with CoLab.
• Run executive, management, and user workshops that expose workflow friction on both sides of the OEM and supplier relationship and create the urgency needed to mobilize multi-stakeholder buying groups.
• Bring the supplier network into deal strategy on CoLab’s most strategic opportunities, partnering with account executives to coach champions, align stakeholders across engineering, quality, supply chain, and procurement, and build the executive narratives that move buying groups forward.
• Track how the motion performs, from supplier activation to supplier-sourced pipeline, and turn those signals into structured product feedback and a clear view of where to invest next.

Our Ideal Candidate 

• You've worked inside an OEM, and you understand the supplier side of the relationship.
• You bring direct experience in engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, supplier quality, or product development at an OEM, where you've owned or worked closely with the handoffs to Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers. Time on the supplier side is a strong plus.
• You know what an OEM feels when a part misses PPAP and what a supplier feels when a late change lands on a quote, and you can speak credibly to both.
• You are a network thinker. You see an account as one node in a larger system, and you can look at a customer's supply base and quickly see where the leverage is, which relationships will carry adoption, and which ones will stall it.
• High emotional intelligence and the ability to read a room of executives in real time. You know when to push, when to pause, when to ask the harder question, and when to take the win and move on.
• Competitive by nature. You are wired to play to win, you put in the reps, and you run at high cadence. You take losses personally enough to learn from them and not personally enough to slow down.
• Sharp sense of time value. You understand which work compounds, which work is throwaway, and which conversations are worth a calendar hold versus a quick Slack. You make calls and you move.
• Clear, direct communicator. You write concisely, present without filler, and can build a clean, compelling deck under pressure. You know that a strong deck is a forcing function, not a deliverable, and you build them that way.
• Fluent with AI tools as a force multiplier. You know how to use AI to compress research, sharpen messaging, and build faster. You don't just tolerate the tools, you intentionally reach for them to do more with less.

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• You have defined CoLab’s supplier ecosystem strategy, and multiple strategic accounts are actively bringing their suppliers into CoLab as a result.
• You have shaped how the supplier motion is packaged, priced, and resourced, and it runs as a repeatable motion across the revenue org.
• Your network plays are in use by prospecting and CS, with supplier-sourced pipeline and expansion you can point to.
• You are owning strategic supplier mapping workshops with our top enterprise accounts.
• You have meaningfully influenced the outcome of multiple seven figure deals.
• You are trusted to drive customer leadership conversations without backup.
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Extra Details

• This is a full-time, permanent position with a competitive compensation package that includes stock options
• Unlimited paid vacation, extended health benefits, and RRSP/401k matching
• Remote-friendly within Eastern or Central time zones in Canada or the US.
• This role will have a travel component to visit customers onsite. Customer visits are typically 1-3 days total, one or two a month.

Equity Note
Frequently cited statistics show that people who identify with historically marginalized groups are likely to apply to jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. We encourage you to help us break that statistic and apply even if you don't meet every single qualification—your potential is what matters most to us.