About the Canadian Federation of Medical Students
The Canadian Federation of Medical Students (CFMS; www.cfms.org) is a national, student-led organization representing medical students across Canada. CFMS supports medical student advocacy, leadership, wellness, education, member services, partnerships, and national initiatives. The organization is governed by elected student leaders and relies on strong professional operational support to ensure continuity, accountability, and effective execution across annual leadership transitions.
The Opportunity
CFMS is seeking a professional, accountable, and systems-oriented Executive Director to provide operational leadership for a national, student-led medical student organization.
The Executive Director will support the President, Board of Directors, officers, committees, and portfolio leads by strengthening CFMS operations, financial stewardship, governance processes, institutional memory, partnerships, communications, and member-facing impact. This role requires someone who can execute reliably, protect organizational resources, support student leadership, and bring calm operational discipline to a complex national association.
The ideal candidate is steady, humble, service-minded, and experienced. They will be able to manage competing priorities, support governance processes, oversee financial and administrative systems, maintain strong external relationships, and help elected student leaders turn ideas into organized, achievable work.
Key Responsibilities
1. Leadership, governance, and operations
The Executive Director will provide reliable operational leadership while supporting student-led governance.
- Support the President and Board of Directors with meeting cycles, reports, decisions, follow-up, and governance processes.
- Help implement Board decisions, organizational policies, bylaws, procedures, and accountability systems.
- Prepare and maintain operational plans, timelines, action trackers, briefing materials, transition documents, templates, and records.
- Support committees, working groups, and portfolio leads with clear processes and practical execution.
- Manage competing deadlines across events, finances, partnerships, communications, and staff or contractor work.
- Supervise staff or contractors, where applicable, including setting expectations, supporting performance, and documenting follow-up.
- Exercise sound judgment about what can be handled operationally and what requires President or Board direction.
2. Financial stewardship and revenue growth
The Executive Director will help protect CFMS resources, strengthen financial transparency, and support responsible revenue development.
- Support budgets, financial reporting, reconciliations, reimbursements, invoice tracking, audit preparation, and financial controls.
- Work closely with the President, VP Finance, Board, accountant, auditors, administrative staff, and relevant committees.
- Ensure financial records are organized, accessible, accurate, and appropriately documented.
- Identify discrepancies, flag financial risks early, and recommend corrective action.
- Support responsible expense processes, approvals, signing authority practices, documentation, and audit trails.
- Manage or support sponsorship contracts, invoices, deliverables, renewals, sponsor stewardship, and partner reporting.
- Identify sponsorship, grant, government funding, fundraising, and partnership opportunities aligned with CFMS values and student needs.
- Help assess whether resources are aligned with strategic priorities and member-facing impact.
3. Student-centred portfolio support
The Executive Director will help elected student leaders execute priorities despite annual turnover and the time pressures of medical training.
- Support directors, officers, regional representatives, committees, and portfolio leads with logistics, timelines, documentation, approvals, budgets, contracts, and event planning.
- Help portfolios clarify tasks, dependencies, deadlines, and operational next steps.
- Reduce silos by helping portfolios coordinate with each other and align work with CFMS priorities.
- Support national events, conferences, advocacy days, meetings, and member-facing initiatives.
- Coordinate vendors, venues, contracts, travel, catering, meeting spaces, payments, and related logistics.
- Maintain momentum across multiple concurrent projects while closing loops and keeping people informed.
- Ensure Board and portfolio support remains practical, timely, respectful, and student-centred.
4. Partnerships, communications, and continuity
The Executive Director will maintain and grow relationships that strengthen CFMS while building communication and documentation systems that outlast any single Board term.
- Maintain relationships with sponsors, partners, vendors, peer organizations, institutions, government bodies, and health and education stakeholders.
- Represent CFMS professionally in meetings, events, negotiations, and partner discussions.
- Prepare for external meetings and ensure organizational priorities are communicated clearly.
- Know when to seek President or Board direction before committing CFMS.
- Establish clear communication norms, channels, escalation pathways, and follow-up systems.
- Write professional emails, summaries, reports, partner-facing materials, and operational updates.
- Maintain institutional memory through searchable records, contacts, contracts, sponsor files, templates, timelines, decision records, and transition materials.
- Support consistent messaging across partners, internal stakeholders, and member-facing communications.
5. Equity, Indigenous health, accessibility, and belonging
The Executive Director will help ensure CFMS operations are inclusive, culturally safe, respectful, and attentive to equity-deserving students and communities.
- Integrate equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, anti-oppression, and belonging into organizational practices.
- Support respectful engagement with Indigenous learners, Indigenous health priorities, cultural safety expectations, and community-informed work.
- Help ensure equity and accessibility considerations are reflected in events, communications, policies, partnerships, and operational decisions.
- Listen, build trust, accept feedback, and support collaborative decision-making with equity-deserving groups.
- Support respectful conflict management and harm response processes with discretion, fairness, and care.
- Remain open to cultural safety training, ongoing learning, and accountability where prior experience is limited.
Required Qualifications
- Graduate-level training is required, including an MSc or another relevant graduate-level degree or training such as an MBA, MPA, MPP, MHA, MHSc, JD, PhD, or related preparation.
- Senior operational, administrative, executive, or comparable leadership experience in a nonprofit, association, health, education, student, or member-based setting.
- Experience supporting a Board, committee, governance body, or senior leadership team through reports, meetings, decision processes, policy implementation, or operational follow-up.
- Financial management ability, including budgets, financial reporting, expense systems, reimbursements, reconciliations, audit preparation, documentation, and controls.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including timely follow-up, professional judgment, and the ability to close loops.
- Strong project management skills, including the ability to manage multiple stakeholders, deadlines, priorities, and deliverables.
- Sound judgment, discretion, reliability, and comfort working in a student-led governance environment.
Strong Assets
- French-language proficiency and comfort working in a national bilingual context.
- Experience with sponsorships, grants, fundraising, revenue development, or sponsor impact reporting.
- Experience planning conferences, Board meetings, advocacy days, national events, or member-facing initiatives.
- Experience managing contracts, vendors, venues, hotels, catering, travel, or service providers.
- Familiarity with Canadian medical education, health care, health advocacy, student leadership, or the health policy environment.
- Formal project management training, PMP certification, or comparable experience.
- Demonstrated commitment to EDIA, Indigenous health, cultural safety, accessibility, and inclusive practice.
- Experience supervising staff, contractors, or teams.
Desired Attributes
- Professional, accountable, and reliable.
- Responsive, communicative, and transparent.
- Organized, systems-oriented, and detail-aware.
- Collaborative, approachable, and service-minded.
- Proactive, solutions-focused, and able to execute.
- Humble, open to feedback, and culturally aware.
- Comfortable supporting student leadership without displacing it.
- Able to balance ambition with operational realism.
- Calm under pressure and mature in sensitive situations.
Working Style and Expectations
This role requires a leader who can provide structure while respecting the student-led mandate of CFMS. The Executive Director must be comfortable working with elected student leaders whose terms, schedules, and priorities change annually. Strong candidates will understand that continuity, documentation, responsiveness, and sound judgment are not administrative extras; they are central to the success of a national student-led organization.
Application Process
Applicants should submit:
- A current CV or resume.
- A cover letter outlining relevant experience in nonprofit or association operations, governance support, financial stewardship, student or member support, partnerships, communications, and equity-informed leadership.
- Optional: a brief writing sample, operational work sample, or example of a report, briefing note, project plan, or governance document.
Applications should be submitted to Bryce Bogie at [email protected] byJuly 12, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Shortlisted candidates may be invited to participate in interviews, reference checks, and/or a practical exercise related to governance support, operational planning, financial judgment, or communications.
Equity and Accommodations
CFMS is committed to an inclusive, equitable, and accessible selection process. We welcome applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences, including candidates from equity-deserving communities. Accommodation is available on request for candidates participating in the selection process.
- CFMS thanks all applicants for their interest. Only candidates selected for further consideration will be contacted.
Pay: $80,000.00-$84,999.99 per year
Benefits:
- Company events
- Flexible schedule
- Work from home
Work Location: In person
