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CoLab builds AI for mechanical engineering teams, helping them bring complex products (cars, medical devices, jet engines) to market faster. The company captures design rationale and iteration history, enabling better decision-making and eliminating rework cycles. CoLab has raised $72M Series C, was named the 57th fastest-growing company in North America by Deloitte, and counts Bobcat, Triumph Motorcycles, GE Appliances, and Bombardier among its customers.
This role reports to the Director of Industry Strategy & Transformation and sits at the intersection of strategy, go-to-market execution, and product influence. You will define and scale CoLab's supplier ecosystem strategy—a repeatable motion that connects OEMs with their Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, compounding value across the network.
Key responsibilities include:
- Define and own the supplier ecosystem strategy, creating a scalable go-to-market motion for how design collaboration extends from OEM customers into their supply base.
- Shape how the supplier motion is packaged, priced, and resourced in partnership with product, revenue leadership, and finance.
- Map supply networks behind strategic accounts, identifying design dependencies and friction points in feasibility, RFQ, DFM, tooling, and PPAP handoffs.
- Build compelling value cases in both directions: why OEMs should bring suppliers into CoLab and why suppliers should participate.
- Package supplier and network strategy plays that prospecting, BDR, and customer success teams can execute independently.
- Identify opportunities where connected suppliers and adjacent customers become new enterprise relationships.
- Run executive, management, and user workshops to expose workflow friction and create urgency for multi-stakeholder buying groups.
- Bring supplier networks into deal strategy on strategic opportunities, coaching champions and aligning stakeholders across engineering, quality, supply chain, and procurement.
- Track motion performance from supplier activation through supplier-sourced pipeline, translating signals into product feedback and investment priorities.
Year-one success means: supplier ecosystem strategy defined with multiple strategic accounts actively bringing suppliers into CoLab; repeatable motion running across the revenue org; network plays in use by prospecting and CS teams with measurable supplier-sourced pipeline; ownership of strategic supplier mapping workshops with top enterprise accounts; meaningful influence on multiple seven-figure deals; trusted to drive customer leadership conversations independently.
This is a customer-facing, high-leverage role requiring someone who is part strategist, part operator, part competitor—able to read executive rooms, build compelling value cases on the fly, see supply networks holistically, and close next steps before meetings end.
Full-time, permanent position with competitive compensation including 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. Travel component: 1–3 days per month for customer onsite visits.
**Requirements:**
- Direct experience working inside an OEM in engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, supplier quality, or product development, with ownership of or close collaboration on Tier 1 and Tier 2 supplier handoffs. Time on the supplier side is a strong plus.
- Deep understanding of OEM-supplier relationships: what OEMs feel when parts miss PPAP, what suppliers feel when late changes land on quotes.
- Network thinking: ability to see an account as one node in a larger system, quickly identify leverage points, adoption drivers, and stall risks in a customer's supply base.
- High emotional intelligence and real-time executive presence; ability to read rooms, know when to push/pause/ask harder questions, and take wins.
- Competitive mindset: wired to win, puts in reps, runs at high cadence, learns from losses without losing momentum.
- Sharp sense of time value: distinguishes between compounding work, throwaway work, and conversations worth a calendar hold.
- Clear, direct communicator: writes concisely, presents without filler, builds compelling decks under pressure.
- Fluent with AI tools as a force multiplier; intentionally uses them to compress research, sharpen messaging, and build faster.
