Head of Venture Acceleration, Program Manager

Job Description

The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (Lilie) isseeking a Program Manager to lead our Venture Acceleration program.

This is a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation and help Rice entrepreneurs bring their cutting-edge ideas tomarket. In this role, you will be responsible for identifying promising people, research, and companies from across the Rice University ecosystem, and building the immersive, experiential programs to catalyze their next great startup. You will work closely with student startup founders to help them acceleratetheirgrowth, secure funding, and achieve their goals while acting as connective tissue to the broader Texas and US startup  practice, this means you will facilitate mentorship and networking opportunities, you will develop and lead co-curricula rand accelerator programs, and you will manage relationships with partners, sponsors, and key stakeholders to ensure that Lilie’sventure acceleration efforts are a success.

Lilie is a small,ambitious team that works collaboratively to achieve amazing results, employing an iterative creation process where we share ourwork early and often. Lilie is the beating heart of entrepreneurship, innovation, venture capital, and research commercialization for the whole Rice University campus. Our Center combines over 50 for-credit, experiential courses every year with asuite of programs, resources, competitions, and accelerators tohelp entrepreneurs and innovators at every stage of their journey.

Our mission is to serve Rice University students, faculty, andalumni from all majors and degree programs in helping them go fromidea to real-world impact. We’ve been ranked as the #1 Graduate Entrepreneurship program in the country for the last 7 years in arow, but need your help to aim even higher in the future.

The ideal candidate is someone who has been a founder or an operator in an early-stage start-up, especially if pursued while astudent, and is interested in the worlds of entrepreneurship, deeptech, and venture capital. The ideal candidate is a proactive,service-oriented communicator who enjoys collaborating with othersto iteratively refine products to perfection.

Rice Business primarily delivers residential classes and activities taking place almost daily between 7 am and 10 pm. We value a highly collaborative and community-based culture, with expectations toprovide in-person support and services to all members of our community. Remote work options are limited. Most employment activities are required to be performed in-person and on-campus.

This in-person approach is central to the successful achievement ofour research and academic missions.

This position is exclusively on-site, necessitating all dutiesto be performed in-person on campus Monday – Friday 9am to5pm.

This is a two-year term-limited position with a possibility of an extension

Hiring Range: $95,000 to $105,000 , commensurate with education and experience.
* Exempt (salaried) position sunder FLSA are not eligible for overtime.

• Bachelor's degree
• Four or more (4+) years of entrepreneurship, program management and/or start-up experience
  • In lieu of the experience requirement, additional related education, above and beyond what is required, may be substituted onan equivalent year-for-year basis.
• Skills:
  • Ability to develop complex and/or multiple program partnership sand funding sources
  • Ability to develop and initiate new strategies
  • Ability to work well under pressure and manage projects simultaneously
  • Ability to work independently and as part of a team to meet expected deadlines, schedules, and goals
  • Adept at problem solving, creating contingency plans and handling issues when…