Associate Director, Pitch Competitions, Venture Lab
Job Description Summary
Wharton School Overview
Founded in 1881 as the world's first collegiate business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is shaping the future of business by incubating ideas, driving insights, and creating leaders who change the world. With campuses in both Philadelphia and San Francisco, Wharton has over 850 staff, a faculty population of more than 235 renowned professors, and 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students. Each year 13,000 professionals from around the world advance their careers through Wharton Executive Education's individual, company-customized, and online programs. More than 104,000 Wharton alumni form a powerful global network of leaders who transform business every day. Wharton is home to a dynamic community of staff, bringing a wide range of skills, experiences, and perspectives. To learn more, visit www.wharton.upenn.edu.
Venture Lab is a partnership by The Wharton School, Penn Engineering, and The Stuart Weitzman School of Design that provides a physical start here button to serve all students and alumni across the University of Pennsylvania who are interested in entrepreneurship and innovation. Housed in Tangen Hall, Venture Lab is the hub of entrepreneurship for the University of Pennsylvania. We provide students with resources to launch and grow their students businesses through programming, workshops, community, and over 1.5 Million a year in undiluted funds. At seven stories and 68,000 square feet, Venture Lab is the largest student entrepreneurship hub in the world.
Job Description
The Associate Director provides leadership and management for Venture Lab's pitch competitions, including the annual Startup Challenge, pitch nights, and the B-School Disrupt event, and related awards for student founders at the University of Pennsylvania. This work will enable Venture Lab to deliver co-curricular learning opportunities in innovation and entrepreneurship to Penn students and connect them to Penn alumni leaders and experts for practical instruction, advice, mentoring, and networking support. The position is responsible for strategy, program design, and end-to-end execution of these competitions and related student founder programming, including alumni judge recruitment, budget and work plan management, and risk management. The role requires strong project management fundamentals across complex, multi-part initiatives; systems thinking; comfort analyzing and interpreting competition and program data to inform decisions; and the judgment to navigate time-sensitive, high-visibility events involving alumni and student stakeholders. The position reports to the Senior Director of Venture Lab and works closely with cross-functional internal teams and Penn alumni, students, and external partners.
Reporting to the Senior Director of Venture Lab, the Associate Director will:
- Lead the annual Startup Challenge, a multi-stage competition held throughout the academic year that provides Penn student contestants the opportunity to present their business ideas or startups and receive feedback from alumni judges. Develop strategy and manage execution, including the application process, analyzing competition data and tracking progress across multiple rounds to ensure reviews are completed on time, multiple rounds of judging, alumni judge recruitment, and coordinated delivery across cross-functional teams of the work plan, budget, communications plan, and risk management.
- Lead pitch nights throughout the academic year, providing Penn students with opportunities to develop effective communication skills, receive feedback, validate their business ideas, and gain exposure to the Penn entrepreneurship community. Responsibilities include strategy, recruitment and selection of student presenters, engagement of judges from the Venture Lab ecosystem, and partnerships with Penn organizations on themed events.
- Lead the relaunch and end-to-end execution of the B-School Disrupt event, partnering with peer institutions and internal functional teams to produce a cross-institutional showcase of student and alumni ventures and coordinate alumni judges. Collaborate with the Venture Lab founders team to manage the Summer at Venture Lab initiative.
- Prepare management reports and presentations for Venture Lab leadership. Design and maintain performance measurement frameworks, analyze program data to surface insights and recommend improvements, and support Salesforce data entry and management. Collaborate with Wharton External Affairs to produce donor stewardship reports and impact reports, incorporating feedback from Venture Lab and Wharton senior leadership.
The position requires frequent interaction with seasoned, accomplished alumni entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and other professionals engaged in entrepreneurship and innovation careers, including significant donors. The position is also responsible for cultivating an open rapport and a professional, supportive educational approach with undergraduate and graduate student entrepreneurs and innovators from all disciplines across the University of Pennsylvania. The position requires excellent interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills; strong collaboration and team building skills; a forward-thinking mindset; and demonstrated creativity, problem solving, critical analysis, initiative, judgment, decision-making skills, and bias toward action.
This position is based in Philadelphia. After successful completion of the introductory period, this position is hybrid eligible with some weeks requiring more in-person work as needed. While the schedule is generally business hours, the Associate Director must be able to work early mornings/evenings/weekends and to travel as needed.
Job Location - City, State
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Department / School
Wharton School
Pay Range
$66,000.00 - $75,000.00 Annual Rate
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