We’re looking for a Senior Project Lead to join our Corporate Growth Team, where you will be on the frontlines of delivery working alongside our APAC corporate clients. While we’re known primarily for working with early-stage tech companies, 500 Startups’s Corporate Growth Team powers an innovation marketplace by connecting startup innovations and methods to corporate needs. Specifically, corporations have partnered with 500 in the past to:
- Partner with startups who have complementary product, technology, or talent to their core capabilities;
- Surface future insights on the evolution of a specific industry or category, based on 500’s work with a number of startups in that area;
- Train their employees on entrepreneurial methodologies, practices, and tools (Corporate Intrapreneurship) to build internal capacity to run innovation projects quickly and at scale;
- Manage startup-corporate partnerships, pilots, and Proofs of Concepts (POCs) which validate initial assumptions about the viability of a startup’s product or business model within the broader context of a corporation’s capabilities;
- Set up investment or business development entities within the corporation’s organizational structure that understand how to support and accelerate the startup’s development journey.
What You Will Do
As Senior Project Lead on the Corporate Growth Team, you will support Project Managers and Directors deliver corporate-facing projects, manage clients, and collaborate with 500’s Corporate Executives-in-Residence to build critical assets and team infrastructure.
Key Responsibilities amp; Deliverables
- Project Support:
- Contribute to overall success of each project by supporting Project Manager in program design, including timeline, key milestones, sub-workstreams, and sign-offs from clients. This includes gathering and analyzing information, designing charts and timelines e.g. Gantt Charts, taking notes and tracking stakeholder input, and managing formatting and aesthetics of the document.
- Contribute to post-project review of key learnings and what could be improved. This includes developing surveys for feedback from different parties, and populating the report that captures all takeaways for partner organizations.
- Services Development:
- Assist Corporate Executives-in-Residence with startup outreach and research and development of Corporate Growth program assets
- Support Corporate Growth Team in implementing the end-to-end Service Development process, which may include helping conduct user interviews, gathering and analyzing data, and creating debrief materials.
- Meet, assess, and recruit experts from the 500 Startups network and beyond to participate in roundtables and meetings related to corporate innovation and the startup ecosystem
- Trends-Sensing:
- Conduct market and industry research on latest venture and corporate innovation trends with an eye towards understanding interests of 500’s corporate audience
- Synthesize and compile insights into succinct and persuasively written thought pieces to support business development
- Analyze startup performance across priority industries and meet with startup founders to assess fit with corporate partner needs
Requirements
Who You Are
You have:
- At least 3 years of project and/or program experience in a fast-paced -- preferably cross-cultural -- environment with demonstrable results
- Excellent writing and communications skills and can put together a visually compelling powerpoint presentation under short notice
- A strategic mind -- you can synthesize different areas of growth and opportunity for an organization and clearly pitch your ideas
- An emergent understanding of the innovation ecosystems (i.e., major venture capital firms, types of innovation business and operating models, key startups across different industries) in the Asia-Pacific
- A bachelor’s degree
- Korean native and English language proficiency (this role is based in Seoul)
- Nice to have: Experience working internationally and/or with remote teams
- Nice to have: Experience working with corporate innovation projects (e.g., Proofs-of-Concepts, Pilots, Venture Studios)
You are:
- Adaptable: You’re comfortable with a minimal amount of direction but high expectations
- Reliable: You turn around deliverables and work products on time, as communicated
- Resourceful: You know how to navigate organizations to gather the knowledge, tools, and skills needed to deliver successfully on your portfolio of work
- Meticulous: You care about the details, and believe they result in superior work products and client experiences / satisfaction
- A Team Player: You’ll chip in as