Our team is small but highly impactful
Are you passionate about working towards a healthy planet that will sustain humans in harmony with the complex ecosystems we depend on? Do you like working with remote teams of impassioned individuals and partner organizations to achieve world-changing goals? Join our team! We will post any open positions below.
Open Positions
Entrepreneurship Director
Over the past eight years, The Biomimicry Institute’s (TBI) Global Design Challenge has reached nearly 2,500 participants from 51 countries around the world. Four years ago, together with the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, the Institute began a focused entrepreneurship program to help turn these biomimetic design concepts into early-stage innovations; this is the Biomimicry Launchpad. In this short time, nearly 20 teams from 15 countries have been awarded nearly $500k by the Institute and another $1.5M in additional prize and grant money, while one collection of teams has gone on to join a consortium that secured 10M euros in EU funding. These nature-inspired solutions are providing advancements in agriculture (both small farm holders and commercial), water, energy, and climate change mitigation.
The Institute helps mentor, fund, and train new inventors and entrepreneurs who want to address important problems in the world through new bio-inspired ventures. Our Launchpad program provides funding, immersive workshops, and specialized coaching to innovators to help them move their inventions into the marketplace, and culminates in an investor-readiness and due diligence bootcamp.The Entrepreneurship Director is responsible for maintaining and enlarging the entrepreneurship pillar of The Biomimicry Institute, expanding its global pipeline and support ecosystem through robust partnerships. The person in this role must have strong analytical skills, the ability to creatively solve problems, and a self-starter mentality.
Note: This is a remote position, but we are hiring candidates based in San Francisco, Portland, OR, Seattle, and New York City only.
Read more.
Main duties:
- Direct the Launchpad program:
- Pipeline recruitment
- Judges and mentor recruitment
- Delivery of in-person Biomimicry & Business Bootcamp for entering teams (or partnership outsourcing thereof)
- Design of investment vehicle for Launchpad graduates
- Process design and implementation for collection and publication of team profiles (current and former teams)
- Comprehensive (ongoing) landscape assessment of potential partners
- Network and cultivate relationships to secure these partnerships (resulting in a stronger and more visible pipeline of teams)
- Prospective partners include: public, private, governmental, and academic organizations.
- Speak on behalf of TBI in consortia, conferences, and meetings to advance said partnerships
- Secure funding/investment, legal, business mentorship, engineering, and biomimicry experts to support teams
- Identify regional partners (or global partners with regional reach) to support entrepreneurship ecosystem in one new region per year, beginning with Biomimicry Global Network member organizations (eg: India, Sub-saharan Africa, Brazil)
- Define and capture programmatic goals and accomplishments for funders and in-house development activities (point person on all communications and fundraising)
- Evaluate the intellectual property (IP) and technology of Launchpad teams and how related revenue can be generated moving forward.
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Qualities:
- Proven experience working in entrepreneurship or relevant environment
- Strategic thinker
- Results-oriented: can secure partnerships
- Desire for continuous improvement
- Excels with a high degree of autonomy
- Cultivates effective relationships across cultures
- Excellent public speaker
- Understands the needs of early-stage startups
- Passionate about solving big challenges such as climate change
- Position requires 25-35% international travel
Preferred:
- Experience working in emerging economies
- Knowledge of biomimicry, circular economy, or the sustainability field
- Masters or related graduate degree
- Proven experience working in entrepreneurship or relevant environment
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HOW TO APPLY
To apply, please submit resume and cover letter highlighting your relevant experience and your reason for applying here.
The application period will be closed on January 11, 2019.
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