Job description

The Entrepreneurship Institute exists to support entrepreneurial thinking, skills and experiences amongst King’s students, staff and alumni. No matter the career, skills to innovate and to be entrepreneurial will be invaluable. We support people to have careers as entrepreneurs and start up innovative new businesses and social enterprises, but also to be innovative in their chosen career – whatever that might be. We create agile corporate employees, entrepreneurial public sector staff and innovative medics. We are a fast-paced and high performing team delivering a range of programmes and initiatives at scale across the university.  

Our vision is that by 2029 everyone at King’s will have had the opportunity to make entrepreneurship part of their DNA. 

The Ventures Manager will be responsible for the implementation and delivery of acceleration support for entrepreneurs and ventures from the King’s eco-system of student, alumni and staff (founder-owned IP).  

The role holder will be responsible for supporting the best, early-stage, diverse, entrepreneurial talent amongst the King’s community to start better and scale through an intensive 12-month accelerator. Built on the principals of embedding and implementing knowledge, complimented with our unique framework the 7 Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset.  

The Ventures Manager will be responsible for the design, development and curated delivery of an inclusive programme for a minimum of 20 ventures with clearly defined evaluation processes to objectively review and to evolve the programme based on participant feedback.  

They will be responsible for sourcing the best, early-stage ventures and will be required to develop compelling outreach initiatives to promote the Accelerator to build a robust pipeline of entrepreneurial talent. Furthermore, the role holder will be required to work collaboratively with Entrepreneurial Skills Officers, our in-house Investor Relations manager and Venture Managers to create pathways and develop robust and commercial propositions.  

The Ventures Manager will play a fundamental role in the holistic strategy of the Entrepreneurship Institute to support the financial stability of early-stage ventures as well as encouraging a wider ethos of entrepreneurial mindsets across the university and help King’s College London stand out as an example of good practice in this area.   

This post will be offered on an indefinite contract.  

This is a full time post

Key responsibilities

• The Ventures Manager will be responsible for these key activities:  
• Work across our audience to find and bring forward the best entrepreneurial talent with the most viable start-up ideas, forging a network across King’s so that acceleration support is integrated and supports the King’s ethos and aims. 
• Design, develop and deliver a 12-month programme to aid the development of commercial propositions with a minimum of 20 ventures annually. Facilitating a holistic programme inclusive of validation, customer discovery, competitor and market analysis, routes to markets and communication.  
• Ensure robust monitoring and evaluation of all programmes and initiatives to help iterate and improve programmes iteratively and be able to demonstrate and report impact over time.  
• To co-ordinate a substantial pipeline of entrepreneurs, both in terms of quantity and quality, who are diverse, inclusive and solving world-wide challenges. 
• To build a vibrant ecosystem of support for early-stage entrepreneurs outside of King’s College London. Working with respectable and leading sector specific experts to build a leading team of Experts in Residence.    
• To work in collaboration with the Investor Relations Manager to advocate the investment readiness of King’s ventures amongst the wider eco-system. 
• Forecast and manage the budget associated with all programming.  
• Be a champion of equality, diversity and inclusion within entrepreneurship at King’s and work to ensure a diverse pipeline of staff participating in EI opportunities where possible as well as identifying and mitigating access to participation where needed.  
• Be a thought leader on the subjects of; venture development and entrepreneurial leadership. Share learnings from our work and approach with the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem.  
• ​Work collaboratively with the Skills Manager to ensure that our pipeline programmes for early-stage ventures convert into high quality candidates for our accelerator programme  
• ​Provide guidance and feedback on early-stage business ideas to members of our community
• Other reasonable duties as requested by the line manager, the Head of Ventures.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required toundertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Skills, knowledge, and experience 

Essential criteria

1.     Educated to degree level in a relevant field  

2.     Excellent knowledge of entrepreneurship and related learning, entrepreneurial skills and programmes design to facilitate advancement  

3.     Strong strategic thinking bias with the underlying capability to ensure viability of tactical implementation. Strong relationship building and ability to compel others with persuasive cases.  

4.     Experience of assisting early stage start-up businesses to succeed

5.     Excellent written and verbal communication skills

6.     Strong project and event management skills both online and in person

7.     A confident and engaging presenter and facilitator, happy to deliver in front of large and varied groups

8.     Strong understanding of project evaluation and impact measurement

9.     Takes initiative and works proactively and independently to resolve problems.

10.   Confident in bringing forward new ideas and feeding into departmental strategy where appropriate

11.   Budget management and/or experience in completing financial processes

Desirable criteria

1.     Use and knowledge of Digital Learning software

2.     Engaging and influencing stakeholders at all levels and backgrounds, being able to bring people on board with new ideas.   

Further information

As a team we operate a flexible and hybrid working model with all members of our team working part time in the office and part from home around the requirements of the each role. Occasional evening and weekend hours may be required for which time off in lieu will be awarded.