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New Ventures Associate
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Position Number: 2560180
Location: Albany, NY
Position Type: Business - Business Law

Thank you for considering The Research Foundation for SUNY in your search.

About The Research Foundation for SUNY:

The Research Foundation for The State University of New York (RF) is the largest comprehensive university-connected research foundation in the country.

Our mission is to provide talent, services, and technology that empower SUNY to research, innovate, and transfer discoveries that transform the world's knowledge economy.

Our vision is to make SUNY the best place for faculty, students, and staff to research, innovate and solve the world's most pressing problems.

The RF serves SUNY by providing essential administrative services that enable SUNY faculty to focus their efforts on the education of students and the performance of life-changing research across a wide range of disciplines including medicine, engineering, physical sciences, energy, computer science, and social sciences. We work with the academic and business leadership of SUNY campuses to support research and discovery through the administration of sponsored projects and technology transfer and management of intellectual property for public benefit and economic growth.

The RF is committed to diversity, inclusion, and a working environment that enhances productivity creates personal and professional opportunities, unleashes everyone's full potential, and fuels innovation. We hold the organization and each other to the highest standards of integrity, accountability, and ethical behavior.

Visit www.rfsuny.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn about SUNY at www.suny.edu.

ADDITIONAL CENTRAL OFFICE EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

As a learning organization, the RF encourages all employees to continue to grow and develop professionally. At the RF Central Office, employees are offered many opportunities for learning and development, including Professional Development Planning, a 12-month Mentoring Program, Tuition Reimbursement, Job Rotation, DiSC Profile Behavioral Assessment, Employee Engagement Teams, Job Skills Training, and an Employee Wellbeing Team.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

The Research Foundation for The State University of New York (RF) seeks a New Ventures Associate to join its Industry and External Affairs (IEA) team to translate university technologies into life-changing innovations through entrepreneurship and startups across New York State. RF is looking for a candidate who is an action-oriented, entrepreneurial, impact-driven team player that has experience in entrepreneurial endeavors, business development, or project management. This is a unique opportunity to combine all these skills to develop and deliver entrepreneurial and commercialization programs in a fast-growing environment for SUNY's billion-dollar research enterprise.

You will help build and manage entrepreneurial and commercialization programming for SUNY faculty, students, staff, and startups. You will help grow our pipeline of startups and support them to attract non-dilutive funding and investment capital to accelerate the commercialization of their technologies. Your performance will be assessed primarily by the quantity and health of new companies, and new partnerships, emerging from SUNY's expansive research and technology portfolio. You will also help monitor and grow SUNY's startup equity portfolio of over 50 privately held companies with a total valuation of half a billion dollars.

As a New Ventures Associate, you will proactively engage and build strong relationships with SUNY's research community and external partners, including investors, industry, and government. You will work directly with SUNY's top researchers to help them develop their technology and determine the best path for commercialization and market adoption. In this role, it is essential that you team with New York State's innovation ecosystem leaders to identify and curate entrepreneurial opportunities, cultivate and develop entrepreneurs, and connect them to expand partnerships and grow healthy high-tech companies.

Your primary goal will be getting more SUNY technology to market and you will do this through a combination of entrepreneurial education and training support, commercialization assistance, and industry engagement. To be successful in this role, you will be a constant learner, excellent listener, utilize data to drive decisions, proactively communicate with colleagues, and focus on developing and growing strong relationships with key stakeholders both inside and outside of SUNY.

Through direct, daily interaction with research and technology commercialization professionals across the SUNY enterprise, faculty (including Nobel laureates), small and large businesses, and investors, the IEA team builds strong relationships, seizes opportunities, and enters into agreements to translate academic discoveries into commercial products that benefit society, impact public health, and improve quality of life. If you are a business-minded individual who is self-motivated, enthusiastic about technology and entrepreneurship, outgoing, enjoys teamwork, thrives when continually challenged, and craves opportunities for deep engagement with some of the world's brightest scientific thinkers and doers, then this is the dream opportunity you have been searching for.

DUTIES:

Develop and manage entrepreneurial education and training programs across New York State, working closely with partners throughout SUNY and beyond. This includes recruiting entrepreneurs and supporting their efforts to launch new SUNY technology-based ventures, coaching entrepreneurial teams to develop commercialization plans and go-to-market strategies, identifying funding opportunities, empowering teams with the knowledge and connections needed to actively conduct customer discovery, cultivating potential management teams for SUNY startups.
Support and help to grow the SUNY startup portfolio with the goal of raising the visibility of all startups and connecting entrepreneurs to the resources they need to grow successful New York State companies (e.g., SBIR/STTR and other non-dilutive funding programs, private capital, corporate/strategic development partners, customers).
Engage with stakeholders across SUNY campuses to identify and support relevant startup teams, organize and run entrepreneurial education and acceleration programs, connect candidates with experiential entrepreneurial training and other resources, oversee awards and investments that fund teams.
Execute programs, events, and partnerships designed to support new startup company formation, build entrepreneurial teams, and establish startup runways around promising SUNY technologies.
Assist with company formation and technology commercialization, including engaging inventors, students, and post-docs in discussions around venture development and assisting with other startup activities for new companies on an as needed basis.
Help develop and refine business processes and related systems needed to measure, maintain, and track metrics, outcomes, impacts, and achievement of targets for the New Ventures program portfolio.
Collaborate with IEA team members to build reports, dashboards, visuals, etc. to illustrate to key stakeholders and the world how we are making SUNY the best place for researchers and entrepreneurs to solve the world's most pressing problems.
Maintain and exceed business development, startup, and other key performance indicators. Manage data collections/analysis, program assessment and evaluation activities, regular tracking of participating teams' and companies' performance against milestones.
Document best practices for growing startups and mentoring programs within the SUNY innovation ecosystem and New York State and continually find ways to improve our processes around startup formation and business development support.

REQUIREMENTS:

You are the best candidate for this role because you are:

Passionate - For you, this is not just another job. Our mission resonates with you, you truly believe in what we do and get energy from our collective wins. Like us, you want to make a difference. Here, you can.
Tireless - You seek to learn from others constantly, while also helping to support those who are not as well versed as you are in your technical area. As a result, you are determined to achieve your goals and relentlessly support your team while always keeping in mind this is not your typical 9-5 job.
Gritty - You have an agile mindset, can-do attitude, a desire to "get to yes", and a willingness to tackle any task needed to get the job done. You thrive in a fast-paced and changing environments that let you flex your creative muscle and you value being a key member of a close-knit team that works hard and always has each other's backs.
Entrepreneurial - You are undeterred no matter the situation and pivot when you need to. You enjoy building things and serving others in working toward and achieving common objectives and goals. You are obsessed with delivering a high-quality product no matter how small the task and take real pride in your work.

What can you bring to an exciting opportunity like this?

Five years or more of professional experience in entrepreneurial endeavors and programs, business development or program management.
A Bachelor's degree in a related field. An advanced degree in science, engineering, business, law or business is preferred.
Outstanding people and interpersonal skills, including the ability to work and communicate effectively with a diverse range of stakeholders.
Working knowledge of university and academic norms and culture.
An understanding of the basics of intellectual property and technology transfer.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Unrelenting attention to detail.

Additional Information:

As an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer, The Research Foundation for SUNY will not discriminate in its employment practices due to an applicant's race, color, creed, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, transgender status, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, physical and mental disability, criminal record, genetic information, predisposition or carrier status, status with respect to receiving public assistance, domestic violence victim status, a disabled, special, recently separated, active duty wartime, campaign badge, Armed Forces service medal veteran, or any other characteristics protected under applicable law.

The Company will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant.

Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled.

The Research Foundation for the State University of New York is not an agency or instrumentality of the State of New York. Employees of the Research Foundation for the State University of New York are not state employees, do not participate in any state retirement system, and do not receive state fringe benefits. The Research Foundation for the State University of New York operates under a contract with The State University of New York and receives no directly appropriated state funding.

Application Instructions:

Applicants interested in applying MUST submit the following documents:

1. Resume/CV
2. Cover Letter

After submitting your resume/CV, the subsequent pages enable you to upload additional documents including a cover letter.

Returning Applicants - Login to your RF SUNY Careers Account to review your application.