Closing Date: August 8, 2023
Position: Director of Business Attraction, Retention & Expansion - Permanent, full-time, 35 hours/week
Peterborough & the Kawarthas Economic Development (PKED) is a non-profit corporation responsible for the delivery of economic development and tourism services on behalf of the City of Peterborough and County of Peterborough. We play a leadership and strategic role in developing the economic capacity of the Peterborough region.
PKED’s business attraction activities help to identify why a company should select Peterborough & the Kawarthas as a destination to invest in. We build relationships with targeted firms, industries, and communities to maximize investment attraction efforts. As well, we work with larger organizations such as Ontario East Economic Development, Invest Ontario, and Invest Canada to help showcase the reasons to invest in the region.
Our main goal of business retention and expansion (BR&E) is to assist existing regional businesses with issues that could cause closure or failure, and to prevent companies from relocating to other communities. A strong BR&E program preserves and increases local jobs and tax revenues by maintaining and diversifying the local economy and access to goods and services. In addition, it provides data and intelligence to strategically attract new companies to a community and foster the creation of new businesses.
We have a team of dynamic professionals who offer economic expertise that identifies growth opportunities, provides services to existing ventures, and attracts new companies and visitors by sharing the region’s competitive advantages.
POSITION SUMMARY
Reporting to the President/CEO, the Director of Business Attraction, Retention and Expansion plays a critical supporting role in attracting new business investment to the Peterborough & the Kawarthas region. This position also works with existing local businesses to identify opportunities for growth as well as proactively identify challenges that may cause a business to consider relocation. The Official Plans of both the City and County, as well as PKED’s Strategic Plan, provide the guiding documents to develop relationships, partnerships and programming that will support municipal initiatives leading to investment attraction and business retention. The Director of Business Attraction, Retention and Expansion works with all levels of government (municipal, provincial and federal) as well as community organizations and educational institutions to promote the region as a destination of choice for investment. The incumbent leads a team of Economic Development Officers to create and deliver effective, regional economic development programming for both urban and rural communities.
The expected outcomes of this role are to attract, retain and expand existing businesses which will ultimately generate high-value jobs in the Peterborough & Kawarthas region resulting in a thriving and competitive economy.
Please send your application (PDF or Word document) to Barbara van Vierzen, Director of Operations at recruitment@investptbo.ca by August 8, 2023.