Head of Venture Acceleration - Program Manager

All applicants should apply directly on the Rice University website (); applications submitted via Linked In will not be considered. All interested applicants should attach a resume in the Supporting Documents section of the application, preferably in a PDF format to avoid any formatting issues.

Boasting a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has a 6-to-1 undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio, and a residential college system, which supports students intellectually, emotionally and culturally through social events, intramural sports, student plays, lectures series, courses and student government. Developing close-knit, diverse college communities is a strong campus tradition, which is why Rice is highly ranked for best quality of life and best value among private universities.

Rice is also a wonderful place to work. Rice faculty, staff and students share values that are essential to our success as a healthy community. Those values guide our decisions and behaviors and shape Rice’s culture. They come through in the way we treat each other and the welcome we extend to our visitors. These values can be recalled simply by our name — RICE — Responsibility, Integrity, Community and Excellence.

The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (Lilie) is seeking a Program Manager to lead our Research Commercialization and Venture Acceleration programs. This is a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation and help Rice entrepreneurs bring their cutting‑edge ideas to market. 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 and faculty startup founders to help them accelerate their growth, secure funding, and achieve their goals while acting as connective tissue to the broader Texas and US startup ecosystems. In practice, this means you will facilitate mentorship and networking opportunities, you will develop and lead co‑curricular and accelerator programs, and you will manage relationships with partners, sponsors, and key stakeholders to ensure that Lilie’s research commercialization and venture 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 our work 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 a suite of programs, resources, competitions, and accelerators to help entrepreneurs and innovators at every stage of their journey.

Our mission is to serve Rice University students, faculty, and alumni from all majors and degree programs in helping them go from idea to real‑world impact. We’ve been ranked as the #1 Graduate Entrepreneurship program in the country for the last 6 years in a row, but need your help to aim even higher in the future.

The ideal candidate works collaboratively and has strong opinions that are adaptable to new information. The ideal candidate is a proactive communicator and service‑oriented, through and through. The ideal candidate employs an iterative process for review of work to ensure our students receive information and experiences that are thoroughly vetted and something we are proud to stand behind.

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 to provide 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 of our research…