Venture Builder

TekVentures is the Growth Incubator for Global Businesses.

TekVentures is the corporate venture studio of Teknor Apex. We are creating new businesses internally by leveraging the resources, talent, capital, technology, market access and expertise of Teknor Apex to incubate and grow new ventures. We focus on developing new business ideas and turning them into viable startups.

We are looking for a Venture Builder or Entrepreneur in Residence to lead these potentially game-changing startup projects through the various stages of Venture Building and help us evolve the methodologies we use to build long-term sustainable and profitable companies. This is a strategic position designed to infuse entrepreneurial thinking and innovation into our organization and the start-up ventures.

If you are a past founder, CEO, operations or product leader who is deeply passionate about startups and company building and are ready to apply your experience to help create companies that can redefine entire markets and categories, we want to talk to you.

The Role

• Work as a general management leader and product management expert with entrepreneurial teams responsible for creating disruptive new businesses.
• Responsibility to teach, coach and enable so that teams can ultimately function on their

own.

• As one of the early “founders” of the team, do the hands-on execution across swimlanes to develop the culture of the startup team, set the pace and drive quality work and output.
• Lead and align teams to plan, prioritize and execute across the “swimlanes” to achieve the committed outcomes at each phase.
• Develop the operating plan and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for each phase of the venture, building on the learnings of the prior phase, based on the shared vision of the opportunity.
• Participate in recruiting, interviewing, and vetting potential entrepreneurial team members.
• Updating our frameworks and methodologies to account for our own learning, new technologies or tools, and emerging practices in company building.
• Orchestrate TekVentures resources to train and coach teams on customer interviews, scripts, storyboards, etc.
• Help teams frame and sort through their experiences. Facilitate daily/weekly syntheses, eventually training team to run their own.
• Guide the team through the TekVentures incubation process.
• Facilitate workshops and exercises that help establish team norms, teach TekVentures methodology, and/or help advance the team towards their goals.
• Support business development activities.

Requirements

• 10+ years of startup leadership or related experience.
• Understanding of, and familiarity with, venture-backed company and ecosystem dynamics; experience raising capital a plus; startup company board experience a plus.
• Time spent in customer-facing roles at a senior level (e.g., consulting, sales, sales support, customer service)
• Exceptional leadership skills and the demonstrated ability to gain confidence, build rapport, and drive the right discussions and decisions with team members, “mothership” leadership and other stakeholders.
• Deep understanding of the connection between business operations and the business financials, and the ability to shape strategies to support financial goals.
• Execution-oriented individual that understands and can apply lean startup thinking, manage complex projects, and run teams
• Familiarity and/or experience interviewing customers for market research and/or Voice of the Customer initiatives
• Experience facilitating ideation and solution brainstorming workshops for cross-functional teams
• Organizational courage to kill or advance ideas in the context of passions and opinions (in addition to data).
• Outstanding product management skills with the ability to develop product concept visions, MVPs, and roadmaps at both a strategic and detailed level
• A willingness to do whatever it takes to make projects and teams successful – there is no job too big or too small
• Humility to know when to listen and when to talk, when to push, when to lift up, and when to step back—and a natural, innate need to advance the lives of others.
• Ability to deal with ambiguity in a fast-paced, fluid environment
• Ability to work within small, unstructured teams with limited resources and demonstrated ability to deliver team outcomes.
• Past roles working at or consulting to global enterprises, ideally in a strategic role

TekVentures is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.

We require background and reference checks. Physical requirements include ability to communicate effectively in written and oral forms, to listen and hear and/or read on and through electronic devices for extended periods of time.

Authorization to work remotely from within the US required.