Fractional Operations & Client-Delivery Consultant

Agora Labs is a Nova Scotia–based research-operations and scientific-communications services company. We support academic researchers, health-science teams, and early-stage organizations with grant and manuscript workflows, professional scientific materials, deadline coordination, and research communications.

We are seeking an experienced independent Operations & Client-Delivery Consultant to build a lightweight, reliable operating system for a small remote team. This is a practical implementation engagement—not an internship, student placement, or general virtual-assistant role.

The successful consultant will help turn founder-led, ad hoc workflows into clear, repeatable systems that support high-quality delivery while protecting deadlines, client communication, and team capacity.

Engagement details

• 90-day independent-contractor pilot.
• Approximately 15–25 total hours over the engagement.
• Remote, primarily asynchronous work; Halifax/Dartmouth candidates are welcome but not required.
• CAD 55–65/hour, depending on relevant experience and proposed scope.
• Maximum initial budget: CAD 1,500 before applicable taxes.
• Work beyond the agreed scope or budget requires written approval.
• Opportunity for a limited ongoing engagement if the pilot is successful and client demand supports continuation.

What you will deliver

During the engagement, you will assess current workflows and establish a practical client-delivery system. Expected deliverables include:

• A concise diagnostic of current workflow bottlenecks and recommended priorities.
• A simple client-intake and project-scoping process.
• A project-management board and clear workflow stages from inquiry through final delivery.
• Standard operating procedures for core services, initially focused on grant-submission readiness and manuscript-submission support.
• Reusable task briefs, project templates, version-control conventions, and quality-control checklists.
• A lightweight system for assigning, tracking, reviewing, and completing remote work.
• A short weekly founder dashboard covering active work, deadlines, capacity, decisions needed, and risks.
• A handoff plan allowing routine coordination to occur without daily founder involvement.

Responsibilities

• Translate broad service requests into clear scopes, milestones, dependencies, and deliverables.
• Build usable operating procedures and templates rather than high-level strategy documents.
• Establish simple, low-friction systems for task assignment, deadline tracking, quality review, and client updates.
• Coordinate routine workflow for a small remote team member using clear written briefs and respectful professional communication.
• Draft or refine client-facing status updates, requests for missing materials, and delivery communications.
• Identify scope creep, schedule risks, unclear ownership, and work requiring founder or scientific review.
• Maintain careful version control, documentation, and confidentiality.
• Provide concise weekly reporting to the founder.

Required qualifications

• At least 5 years of paid experience in project management, operations, client delivery, professional-services administration, agency operations, executive operations, research administration, consulting, or a comparable setting.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing practical workflows, SOPs, templates, project boards, or quality-control systems.
• Experience coordinating remote or asynchronous work.
• Strong written communication, excellent follow-through, and sound judgment about priorities and escalation.
• Comfort working with Google Workspace and at least one workflow platform, such as Asana, ClickUp, Trello, Airtable, Monday.com, or Notion.
• Ability to work independently, define next steps, and raise issues early.
• Ability to invoice as an independent contractor in Canada.
• Ability to provide professional references if requested.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience supporting academic, health-science, nonprofit, consulting, agency, biotech, or professional-services clients.
• Experience with document-heavy and deadline-sensitive workflows.
• Familiarity with grant administration, manuscript submission, scientific communications, or regulated/professional environments.
• Located in Halifax, Dartmouth, or elsewhere in Nova Scotia, although remote Canadian candidates are welcome.
• Experience building systems for small teams, solo founders, or early-stage service businesses.

This role is not

This opportunity is not a student placement, internship, general virtual-assistant position, or a role designed primarily for applicants seeking training in operations. We are looking for a proven independent professional who can create systems that reduce day-to-day founder bottlenecks.

The role does not require scientific authorship or responsibility for scientific, clinical, legal, regulatory, financial, or therapeutic decisions. The founder retains responsibility for scientific review, strategy, client contracting, pricing, and final substantive approval.

Compensation and terms

The initial engagement is expected to be paid at CAD 55–65/hour, depending on experience and scope, with a total engagement cap of CAD 1,500 before applicable GST/HST. The successful contractor will invoice Agora Labs monthly. Any extension or additional work will be separately agreed in writing.

Application process

Please apply with:

1. Your résumé or LinkedIn profile.
2. A brief note describing one example of an operations, project-management, or client-delivery workflow you personally built or improved.
3. An anonymized sample of a relevant work product, such as an SOP, project plan, workflow diagram, project dashboard, client-status report, or quality-control checklist.
4. Your proposed hourly rate and availability during the next 90 days.
5. Confirmation that you can invoice as an independent contractor in Canada.

Shortlisted finalists will be asked to complete a brief paid practical assignment based on a fictional client-delivery scenario. The exercise is designed to assess scope definition, prioritization, task delegation, client communication, and escalation judgment; it is not unpaid speculative work. Finalists will receive clear instructions, a defined time limit, and compensation for the assignment.

Agora Labs welcomes applications from qualified independent professionals of diverse backgrounds. We value practical judgment, discretion, clarity, reliability, and respectful collaboration.