Job Opportunity for Senior Manager – Ecosystem at Wadhwani Foundation in Bengaluru

About Wadhwani Foundation (www.wfglobal.org):

Mission: Accelerating economic development in emerging economies through high-value job creation Objectives: Enabling the creation of 10M jobs and placement of 25M by 2030 across 20-25 emerging economies

Wadhwani Foundation is a not-for-profit with the primary mission of accelerating economic development in emerging economies by driving large-scale job creation through entrepreneurship, innovation and skills development. Founded in 2000 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, today the Foundation is scaling impact in 25 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America through the following Initiatives:

 1. Wadhwani Advantage: Accelerating the growth of tens of thousands of SMEs by providing personalized, on-demand knowledge and consulting resources through an AI-enabled mobile platform to create millions of new jobs.

2. Wadhwani Entrepreneur: Inspiring, educating, and enabling Startup entrepreneurs

·       Wadhwani Venture Fastrack: Maximizes success rates of early-stage startups with enhanced business traction and funding opportunities

·       Wadhwani NEN: Empowers students with knowledge and skills through Courses and Startup Labs to create high-potential startups

·       Wadhwani Inspire: Establishes a nationwide culture of entrepreneurship

3. Wadhwani Opportunity: Empowering millions of students with 21st century employability skills that drive family supporting wages.

4. Wadhwani AI (a partner program): A first-of-its-kind AI research institute in the world – a non-profit dedicated exclusively to applying AI for social good.

5. Wadhwani Catalyst: Invest in high quality entrepreneurs with scalable business models across emerging markets, with a focus in India. The fund will catalyse businesses across sectors, with the overall objective of accelerating economic development by creating livelihoods/ jobs.

6. Wadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy (WITP):

Support government and civil society at large with the dual mission of –

(1) Providing information, insights, and recommendations for the application of technology for policy making, policy implementation, and policy outcomes measurement.

(2) Creating a Technology-focused Training Academy for upskilling policy makers, bureaucrats and technocrats with relevant technologies and the application of the same to their respective ministries and missions.

Our Culture:

WF is a global not-for-profit, and works like a start-up, in a fast-moving, dynamic pace where change is the only constant and flexibility is the key to success. Three mantras that we practice across job roles, levels, functions, programs and initiatives, are Quality, Speed, Scale, in that order. We are an ambitious and inclusive organization, where everyone is encouraged to contribute and ideate. We are intensely and insanely focused on driving excellence in everything we do. We want individuals with the drive for excellence, and passion to do whatever it takes to deliver world class outcomes to our beneficiaries. We set our own standards often more rigorous than what our beneficiaries demand, and we want individuals who love it this way. We have a creative and highly energetic environment – one in which we look to each other to innovate new solutions not only for our beneficiaries but for ourselves too. Open to collaborate with a borderless mentality, often going beyond the hierarchy and siloed definitions of functional KRAs, are the individuals who will thrive in our environment.

This is a workplace where expertise is shared with colleagues around the globe. Individuals uncomfortable with change, constant innovation, and short learning cycles and those looking for stability and orderly working days may not find WF to be the right place for them. Finally, we want individuals who want to do greater good for the society leveraging their area of expertise, skills and experience. The foundation is an equal opportunity firm with no bias towards gender, race, colour, ethnicity, country, language, age and any other dimension that comes in the way of progress. Join us and be a part of us!

Role Context:

Role requirement: Build and manage partnership networks of mentors, incubators, accelerators, founders, investors, service providers and all other ecosystem stakeholders to provide support to start-ups to be more successful.

Attract targeted start-ups to the VFT program through ecosystem relationships, online and offline events and direct outreach.

Responsibilities:

• Work with Wadhwani VFT team for conceptualizing, building and scaling the VFT ecosystem of partnerships to support current and future VFT start-up programs – through incubator, founder, mentor service provider and private investment networks (Angels, HNI’s Family Offices, VC firms and other investment platforms)
• Oversee outreach and selection and onboarding efforts for program partners. Grow and manage network of channel partners for start-ups and mentors, ecosystem stakeholders, and other key partnerships.
• Key element of the role will be to support the buildout of the VFT technology platform by onboarding and building a community of ecosystem partners and peer-peer networks to support start-up needs
• Contribute in building and strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem by forging partnerships with other organizations including liaising with the government and industries
• Overall responsibility for outcomes and key deliverables of the ecosystem partners
• Ensure alignment of ecosystem build-up both in terms of quantity and quality to meet start-up needs – work actively with VFT start-up engagement consultants to identify specific needs for mentorship, master classes, investor perspectives, industry and functional expertise.
• Leverage expertise of ecosystem relationships to design and manage relevant start-up support programs and organize demo days/ pitch sessions with the investor ecosystem.
• Work with program lead to provide strategic guidance to the foundation for building and refining key operating models and processes, benchmarking approaches against other tried and tested models
• Build and improve the program model for the future via continuous business improvement practices
• Contribute to Intellectual property creation through program content, white papers, thought leadership articles, etc

Qualifications, Skills & Experience:

• A seasoned professional with at least 12+  years’ experience with at least 6+  years in the start-up ecosystem in a similar role with a reputed incubator/ accelerator / angel networks/ start-up ecosystem enablement role.
• Proven track record of building and managing start-up enablement programs
• Prior experience of managing accelerator/incubator/angel networks or working in key roles in ecosystem enablement programs
• Experience as a startup founder or investor well networked in the Startup Ecosystem and a regular at key startup events
• Well-connected and respected in the entrepreneurship ecosystem – with a good set of personal relationships in the start-up ecosystem
• Experience organizing effective online and offline events such as demo days, hackathons, brown bag sessions, etc.
• Sales and Business development experience preferred
• MBA/post graduate degree from a reputed institute will be a plus
• Excellent communication and interaction skills
• Ability to work independently as well as in collaborative environments when needed
• Self-motivated, resourceful and ability to operate in a fast changing environment
• Not afraid to don different hats based on program needs
• Tech savvy and strategic thinker