Molly Connor Email & Phone Number

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Toronto, Canada Area

OCAD U CO is the executive training studio of the Ontario College of Art and Design, with a mission to help industry leaders and their teams use creative problem solving to drive innovation and change.Specializing in strategic foresight, innovation strategy, systems thinking, and prototype development, we facilitate highly engaging sessions that support and challenge clients to think beyond their immediate problem and plan for the future.In this work, we partner with a range of private-sector clients to research, design and launchbold, future-facing strategies for today's complex problems.> Develop, design and execute client-facing projects across a range ofsectors to be completed on time and with glowing client reviews, leadingto consistent client retention and ongoing revenues.> Lead and collaborate with internal teams, faculty and OCAD U COmanagement to design, deliver and facilitate highly participatory researchprocesses, workshops and design sprints, delivering on tight timelinesand with a goal to exceed client expectations.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Worked as a cross-disciplinary project manager across Park People's Research and Fee for Service teams to design, research and implement a range of projects, products and services.Notable Projects Include:> Canadian City Parks Report: Coordinated the research, data, insightsand analysis of the annual Canadian City Parks tracking report, featuringcity park data for 30 municipalities across Canada for 2 years. In year 3,developed a series of Fee for Service workshops leveraging the report dataand best practices for city staff across the country.> Future of Nature: Co-created a workshop to explore possible futurescenarios of human and nature interaction, at 25 and 50-year horizons andthe possible social, environmental, economic, political and technologicalimplications.>Theory of Change: Project lead on developing the organization's new and updated Theory of Change, liaising between the senior leadership team, staff and outside consultants over a 10-month period.

Canada

Work with clients across the private and public sector to explore, develop andlaunch innovations, address complex problems and identify customer and citizen-centricsolutions.Past Projects Include:> Innovation and Foresight Sprint: Worked with a global leader inproperty development to engage ten emerging leaders in a five-day,rapid experimentation and innovation workshop. Using foreisght, userinterviews and prototyping, we developed three new products and go-tomarket strategies to be implemented in 90 days.> Digital Learning Product: Led the market research and insights for aproject to develop a new digital learning product for a 100+ year oldCanadian educational institution.> Future of Mobility: Worked with a global leader in mobility to conductmarket research, identify 100 smart city challenges and develop ten newsolution areas to expand and diversify revenue models into 2050.> Developed Strategic Land Activation Assessment Tool: Engaged byThe Space Agency and the Melbourne Water Authority to develop aland assessment product to assess planning constraints and physicalattributes of 30,000 acres of land, as well as the needs of the local areaand community for a land activation project.

Toronto, Canada Area

Co-led a six-week service design sprint focused on defining and measuring the long-term impact of Toronto's municipal Neighbourhood Grants Program.Outputs included:> A service design blueprint, a co-created definition of "long-term impact" as it relates to the Neighbourhood Grants Program, an improved evaluation system for measuring and monitoring long-term impact in the program, and a balanced scorecard.> Assessed the long-term impact of the Neighbourhood Grants program (NGP) and provide opportunities to define, capture, measure and visualize the impact using design research strategies.

Melbourne, Australia

Neighbourlytics is a social analytics platform for neighbourhood development. We work with social data to help city-makers understand the unique local identity of the places they plan, create and manage. Most urban development decisions are made without useful community intelligence, resulting in places which are uninviting, empty and don’t contribute to social value. Neighbourlytics solves this problem. Neighbourlytics effortlessly pulls together untold stories and unheard voices to present a rich picture of community values and aspirations to provide neighbourhood-specific community insights and data that enables city-makers to drive new solutions for neighbourhoods that are locally led and loved. I was as the second employee of the all female startup, taking on the role of “Project Insights Lead”. In less than 6 months, I had grown my team and taken on the role of “Head of Strategic Projects”. She works at the cross-section of business development, client management and project execution. ACCOMPLISHMENTS- Develop, design and implement key projects across a large and diverse client base. Ensure clear communication with clients, manage workflow and work collaboratively with team to ensure deliverables exceed client expectations. - Manage a large portion of new business for the company with a high success rate. Skills include high level of communication and collaboration, negotiating and strategic knowledge. High comfort networking, executing client demos and delivering successful proposals. Working across sectors and project sizes, including large scale procurement projects. Emphasis on workflow management for the team, clear communication between all parties and agreement of deliverables. - Vital understanding of data analytics and data visualisation.- Other duties include: public speaking and workshop facilitation, management of account managers and high level of accountability.

Melbourne, Australia

Engaged by The Space Agency to execute a number of strategic projects for Melbourne Water Authority, The City of Melbourne and Greater Shepparton Council.Responsible for the strategic planning, research and implementation of a unique and innovative filtering process for the activation of Melbourne Water's extensive land portfolio for community and commercial benefit.Other projects included planning and delivering a community development and facilitation workshop for Greater Shepparton Council and the documentation and analysis of stakeholder feedback for the City of Melbourne.

100 Wild Islands, Eastern Shore, N.S.

• Member of a 20-person team engaging businesses to work cohesively for the advancement of the 100 Wild Islands Sustainable Tourism Expansion.• Coordinate business engagement through one-on-one meetings, workshops and event facilitation to encourage cross community and industry collaboration, address challenges and ensure buy-in, loyalty and teamwork.• Work with stakeholders to address the challenges and systemic issues as identified by specific businesses and communities.

Halifax, Canada

Responsible for supporting community and economic development activities across rural Halifax through field research, business development consultations, community initiatives, workshops, and public speaking opportunities.Business Consultant- Operate, manage and execute the SmartBusiness Program in rural Halifax- Initiate and conduct one-on-one consultations with rural businesses. The information collected assists in identifying business, community and labour market issues with the goal of connecting businesses to the service providers and resources needed for resolution and support.Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Engagement Coordinator- Facilitate and support community economic development files.- Collaborate, develop and manage relationships with community business associations, government, stakeholders and community members.- Utilize a business retention and expansion Customer Relationship Management databaseto produce area and industry specific reports for various groups, committees, commissions and board. Systems & Industry Analyst- Identify major systemic issues and bring together stakeholders to identify, analyze and work towards resolution.- Operate under a high level of accountability requiring weekly, monthly and quarterly reporting.SmartBusiness Marketing Coordinator- Manage the marketing content, social media, events and website for the SmartBusiness program.- Work with other business units to accomplish the Halifax Partnership’s goals.

Master Of Design, Strategic Foresight

The Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation is creating a new kind of designer: A strategist who sees the world.

Bachelor Of Management, Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies

Education record

Activities and Societies: Women's Volleyball Division A