Associate Director, Center for Entrepreneurship

• Engage and Support Vanderbilt Founders:
  • Use research, marketing, and other techniques to grow demand for services from Vanderbilt founders.
  • Design workflows to efficiently intake founders into the C4E ecosystem – including but not limited to designing digital and human intake processes which assess startup status and prescribe C4E resources.
  • Lead C4E workshops and speaker series – including but not limited to redesigning workshop content and progression based on founder needs; designing new exercises and tools to support workshop learning objectives; recruiting speakers as needed; working with other C4E resources to drive attendance; teaching and/or moderating sessions; and gathering feedback to improve future offerings.
  • Provide 1:1 mentoring to startup founders as appropriate.
• Grow the Alumni Mentor Program:
  • Build processes to attract, categorize, and onboard Alumni mentors within the Center’s CRM tool.
  • Lead processes to prepare founders for mentorship and create mechanisms that match founders with mentors.
  • Build systems to gather feedback on interactions from both sides of the marketplace to improve the design of the matching program and achieve a net promoter score of 70.
• Drive the Vanderbilt Venture Scout Program:
  • Coordinate with alumni advisors and student leaders to grow the sophistication of marketing, intake, and investment memo development capabilities so that the Venture Scouts support 20 founders a year with 50% receiving funding.
  • Work with student leaders to develop more sophisticated marketing, interview, selection, onboarding, training, and evaluation of Venture Scout students.
• Execute Grant Competitions:
  • Strategize and execute marketing strategies to drive 120+ student-led startup applications annually to the Firestarter, Chancellor’s Launch Grants, and Summer Enterprise Development Grant competitions.
  • Refine selection criteria, feedback mechanisms, and evaluation processes to select the most deserving Vanderbilt startups as winners of each competition.
  • Oversee programmatic aspects for grant competition winners – including coordination of payments, access to in-kind products and services, matching with mentors, access to special lectures and events, and progress check ins as appropriate.
• Other duties as assigned

Supervisory Relationships

This position does not currently have supervisory responsibility; this position reports administratively and functionally to the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.

Education, Experience, and Skills

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Minimum of 3-5 years of experience inside of venture-backed startups or portfolio operations of a venture capital fund.

• Demonstrated history of taking initiative and working autonomously to solve problems with a proven ability to deliver against organizational key performance indicators.

• Strong interpersonal, communication, and organizational skills.

• Knowledge of the startup landscape and resources available for entrepreneurs.

• Familiarity with the Vanderbilt University environment and culture.

• Relationships with noteworthy entrepreneurial figures and/or entities who can provide meaningful resources to Vanderbilt founders.

• Passion for entrepreneurship and supporting student innovation.