Program Manager-Entrepreneursh

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35 hrs/wk
• Salary Range: Commensurate with experience

Position Summary

Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV) is the technology transfer office for Columbia University and a central location for many of the technology development initiatives, entrepreneurial activities, external industry collaborations, and commercially-oriented multidisciplinary technology innovations across the university. CTV's core mission is to facilitate the transfer of inventions from academic research labs to the market for the benefit of society on a local, national, and global basis. Each year, CTV manages more than 350 invention disclosures, 100 license deals, and 20 new IP-backed start-ups, involving over 750 inventors across Columbia's campuses. CTV currently has over 1,200 patent assets available for licensing, across research fields such as bio, IT, clean tech, devices, big data, nanotechnology, materials science, and more.

Over the years, CTV has been involved with launching well over 200 companies based on Columbia's technologies, and has also founded several technology initiatives to accelerate the path to market for promising technologies, including the PowerBridgeNY (PBNY) clean energy proof-of-concept center, the NYC Media Lab, the Columbia-Coulter Translational Research Partnership, Life Science Venture Exchange, and the NYS Cleantech Venture Exchange (CVX).

CTV's efforts are backed by 50+full time staff and an additional 30+ graduate student interns (CTV Fellows), providing broad support to the Columbia community and other stakeholders. CTV also runs an Executive-in-Residence program, which brings seasoned industry executives, serial entrepreneurs, and investors to campus to support faculty and student entrepreneurial activities.

CTV administers the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) program (NEIR Program), which provides paid mentoring, executive team building, peer group facilitation, investor showcases, and other related services and education programs to eligible climate tech startups in New York. CTV also administers a mentoring and executive team building program for participants in Verizon’s Forward For Good Accelerator program (Verizon Program).

In order to improve service coverage and implement expansion of these programs, CTV plans to hire a Program Manager, Entrepreneurship Programs to share administration of the NEIR, Verizon programs and other related programs.

The Program Manager, Entrepreneurship Programs will report to the Program Director, and work with the rest of the CTV team on the NEIR and Verizon programs, from the CTV offices in NYC and remotely in accordance with the CTV workplace policies.  

Diversity Mission Statement

Columbia is dedicated to increasing diversity in its workforce, its student body, and its educational programs. Achieving continued academic excellence and creating a vibrant university community require nothing less.

Both to prepare our students for citizenship in a pluralistic world and to keep Columbia at the forefront of knowledge, the University seeks to recognize and draw upon the talents of a diverse range of outstanding faculty, research officers, staff, and students and to foster the free exploration and expression of differing ideas, beliefs, and perspectives through scholarly inquiry and civil discourse. In developing its academic programs, Columbia furthers the thoughtful examination of cultural distinctions by developing curricula that prepare students to be responsible members of diverse societies.

In fulfilling its mission to advance diversity at the University, Columbia seeks to hire, retain, and promote exceptionally talented women and men from different racial, cultural, economic and ethnic backgrounds regardless of their sexual orientation or disability status. Through effective and fully compliant affirmative action and equal opportunity policies, Columbia strives to recruit members of groups traditionally underrepresented in American higher education and to increase the number of minority and women candidates in its graduate and professional programs.

Responsibilities

A. Peer Groups Design and Implementation

• Assist in forming peer groups for startups and other professionals in the climate tech space.
• Participate in matching NEIRs (i.e. mentors) with Peer Groups.
• Oversee the facilitation and meeting of the Peer Groups, including all tasks and resources to do so, such as scheduling, communication, problem resolving, software platforms, etc.
• Collect data and feedback from participants to tailor and improve the program.
• Develop and track relevant metrics.

B. Education and Participation

• Design and implement curriculum for entrepreneurship programs.
• Secure the teaching and other resources to deliver the curriculum.
• Identify requirements that would lead to a Columbia Certificate of Participation for program participants, if applicable.
• Facilitate the creation and delivery of Skills Labs.
• Introduce and engage eligible participants on the Climate Leadership Slack Network.
• Market and communicate about the program for recruiting and informational and awareness purposes.
• Develop and track relevant metrics.

C. Recruitment & Assessment

The Program Manager, Entrepreneurship Programs will recruit EIR applicants and C-level (CXO) candidates for non-NEIR programs and support the NEIR program in these activities, as necessary.

• Work with outreach partners (e.g. incubators, accelerators, proof-of-concept centers, NYSERDA, etc.) to recruit EIRs.
• Interview, assess, and (re)certify EIR candidates to ensure they have the requisite time, experience and motivation to be able to assist eligible companies.
• Interview, review and assess each startup to ensure they are connected with the right mentoring resources.
• Review each project to ensure that it serves an important need for the startup.
• Facilitate startup, EIR and C-level candidate assessments. Relationship Management & Tracking.

D. Relationship Management & Tracking

The Program Manager, Entrepreneurship Programs will establish relationships with various stakeholders (e.g. marketing partners, technology transfer representatives, entrepreneurs, experienced business professionals, startups, venture investors, NYSERDA, etc..)

• Review the EIRs and startups in the EIR programs and actively seek to make matches for projects identified by the startups.
• Follow up with the EIR and startup regularly once a match has been made, to assess how the project and relationship is progressing and provide assistance as appropriate.
• Work with database, CRM and other IT tools to track project progress.
• Participate in the matching process for CXO Candidates.

E.  Communications & Reporting

• Work with the CTV Marketing Team on all communications, including newsletters, press releases, social media posts, and other ways of communicating the progress and successes of the programs.
• Engage with the Slack community called the Climate Leadership Network.
• Identify and deliver documents to necessary parties, including providing application materials to EIRs, outreach materials to marketing partners, agendas to meeting participants, and notes from meetings.
• Communicate, coordinate, and share best practices with the rest of the team.
• Attend local and regional networking events.
• Design, arrange and conduct EIR and startup training workshops and other events with assistance from in-house marketing resources as appropriate.
• Arrange and manage Info Sessions for EIRs and the broader cleantech, social impact and entrepreneurship communities.
• Assist in educational workshop design and execution.
• Organize and lead networking events.
• Organize and moderate webinars.
• Assist with the NYSERDA Startup Investor Showcase.

F. Resource Management & Expansion of Services

• The Program Manager, Entrepreneurship Programs will work with the Program Director to create and adhere to a program budget that fits within the overall NEIR Program budget and other program budgets.
• Participate in ongoing stakeholder discovery with stakeholders to determine areas for improvement and make recommendations for pilot initiatives to improve the programs.
• Assist in developing and implementing plans for pilot programs for program expansion for all programs, based on the feedback from stakeholder discovery.

Minimum Qualifications

• Equivalent experience or a BA in Business, Management, Communications, Marketing or relevant field required.
• Minimum of five (5) years of relevant business experience required.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Willingness to periodically travel within New York State and attend relevant events during both daytimes and evenings required (reimbursement of out of pocket expenses is subject to Columbia’s reimbursement policies.)
• Proficiency in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Slack are required.
• The most important criteria for this job are: ability to understand what early-stage startups need; ability to build a network of contacts; ability to multi-task effectively and efficiently; ability to interact effectively with people at varying levels of technical detail and career development and ability to track projects over time at varying degrees of detail. Accordingly, the candidate must have outstanding organizational and time management skills and be extremely detail-oriented in a high-volume dynamic environment
• The candidate should be a self-starter able to execute upon the NEIR and other program plans without significant supervision.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing mentor networks and/or recruiting are preferred.
• Experience within the cleantech and/or social impact sectors is preferred but not required.
• Experience with AirTable or other database/CRM tools is a plus

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.