• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Salary Range:

Position Summary

Columbia University is working with the New York City Economic Development Corporation and private sector partners on a cross-sector, $100 M cybersecurity initiative.  Columbia will be leading the Inventors to Founders program, a startup accelerator and talent initiative designed to bring university technologies and startups to market.  We recently launched and are now hiring for the second role on the newly created team.

Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV) runs, directly or jointly with other local institutions, seven virtual technology accelerators.  These include Cyber NYC, PowerBridgeNY (focused on energy, with NYU, CUNY, Cornell Tech, Stony Brook, and Brookhaven National Labs); the Columbia IBM Blockchain Accelerator; the NYC Media Lab Combine Accelerator (with NYU); and 3 in life sciences (BioMedX; Accelerating Cancer Therapeutics; and the Translational Therapeutics Accelerator).  These accelerators collaborate under the umbrella of the Columbia Lab-to-Market Accelerator Network, or Columbia L2M.  Collectively, they have received over 707 applications, with 328 teams through bootcamps, over 150 cash awards granted for over $12M, 40+ commercial launches, and over $120M in external follow-on funding raised by those teams.

This initiative, called the Innovators-to-Founders (I2F) program of CyberNYC, was launched jointly with Columbia, NYU, CUNY, and Cornell Tech, but will expand thereafter to serve the academic cybersecurity innovators across the rest of NYC's research institutions, as well as eventually those from universities in the region and beyond.  The person in this role will work closely with Executive Director, the Lab-to-Market team, NYCEDC, and our partner institutions to design, plan, launch, and scale this initiative.

Responsibilities

• Overall Operational Responsibilities: The incumbent will have primary responsibility of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Inventors-to-Founders program within the CyberNYC initiative, according to the objectives and deliverables agreed to between Columbia and NYCEDC.  This will include two primary areas: a) managing the day-to-day operations of the accelerator, helping promising early-stage cyber innovations launch startups ventures.  The Project Coordinator will serve as the day-to-day point of contact for the entrepreneurs in the accelerator, support management of our mentor network, act as the operational lead on all recruitment and selection efforts for each cohort of ventures, and oversee the program's financial sustainability and reporting. b) help design and manage a program to connect venture-backable cybersecurity C-level executives to cybersecurity startups to ensure they can raise funding and scale.  While much of the approach for these efforts may be based on existing programs in other industry verticals, the Candidate will have significant flexibility and authority to meet the program's goals and objectives, including developing a database to track talent, maintaining metrics on matches, and managing regular communication with all c-level talent prospects and technologies.
• Entrepreneurial Bootcamps: The candidate will coordinate all logistics, event management, and team support during the accelerator's annual boot camp.  The candidate will manage on site logistics of events related to bootcamp and bootcamp affiliated activities, including seminars, showcases, and panel discussions on topics related to cyber, innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, etc. This will include ensuring the room and A/V are setup, RSVP software, invitations, coordinating videography, handouts and signage, and organizing any catering needs.
• External Relationship & Talent Network Management:  The candidate will support the Executive Director in developing and managing all external relationships for I2F, including with the mentors and judges selected for the programs; c-level talent involved with our Cyber IP Link program, Columbia's peer academic institutions; other program operators of the NYCEDC Cyber NYC initiative (Jerusalem Venture Partners, SOSA, Fullstack Academy, and others); with NYCEDC; and with members of government, the press, industry, venture capital, and not-for-profit institutions.  This will include both reporting as required under the contract with NYCEDC, as well as generally providing open and enthusiastic communication with a wide array of stakeholders.
• Accelerator & Cyber IP Link Application Management: The candidate will oversee the full application cycle for teams based on academic research innovations across the universities.  In addition to providing robust programmatic support, I2F will make substantial non-dilutive capital available to participating teams to perform validation experiments, with an expectation that between 3 - 10 teams per cycle will receive follow-on equity funding from a Cyber NYC affiliated venture fund.  The candidate will help organize and promote outreach to speakers, create pitch deck templates, create marketing materials, and organize webinars, and lead our social media strategy.  Additionally, the candidate will manage the Cyber IP Link build out and manage database to connect early stage technologies and startups with founding and executive talent needed to scale the ventures.
• Strategy:  As the I2F initiative launches and gains traction, the candidate will work closely with the Executive Director to develop and execute the program's long-term strategy that will aim to ensure its programmatic and financial sustainability beyond the duration of the contract term with NYCEDC. These efforts will include developing relationships with academic peers in NYC and beyond for programmatic collaborations. It will also include forging strong partnerships with industry stakeholders with the goal of cultivating strong investment and funding support opportunities.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and/or equivalent related experience;
• At least 2 years of relevant experience, ideally in a fast-paced, operationally minded role (ex. software / cybersecurity industry; venture capital; military; recruiting; finance; consulting; events management; government/political campaigns, etc.)
• Excellent writing skills, with passion for cybersecurity, and familiarity and comfort with both technical/scientific and marketing language.  Understanding and expertise in cyber and/or early stage entrepreneurship is encouraged but not required.
• Exceptional organizational skills and high attention to detail. Must demonstrate the ability to multi‐task, manage and write budgets, develop databases, create high-quality presentations, and be responsive to the needs of multiple internal and external constituents.
• Positive outlook, enthusiasm, extroversion, self-motivation and high energy. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Able to exercise mature judgment, discretion, and tact, referring questions and issues, as appropriate.
• Willing and able to adhere to and uphold University policies and standard operating practices of the Office.
• Must possess a 'can-do, whatever it takes, results-driven' attitude to getting the job done.
• Extremely trustworthy and able to work independently.
• An existing network of industry and venture capital connections, including strong relationships in the cybersecurity community would be a strong plus, but not required

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.