The City of Virginia Beach Economic Development is seeking a visionary and results-driven HIVE Lead to join the Economic Development team. Reporting to the Deputy Director, this leadership role serves as the primary architect and manager of the city’s flagship hub for small business, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The HIVE Lead supervises one full-time staff position and contracted personnel while managing a diverse network of vendor partners to deliver high-impact programming and technical assistance to the business community.
This position focuses on empowering small businesses, high-growth and tech startups, and micro-enterprises in Virginia Beach. This role offers the unique opportunity to design, deliver, and amplify resources that drive regional economic growth and foster a culture of innovation.
The HIVE Lead is responsible for evolving the facility into a comprehensive regional destination that serves distinct profiles including:
- Dreamers: Individuals in the ideation phase needing guidance on business plans and licensing.
- Small Businesses: Established local enterprises seeking operational growth and stability.
- Founders and High-Growth Companies: Innovators with scalable models requiring specialized mentorship and capital access.
Click below to learn more about the services HIVE provides:
https://yesvirginiabeach.com/the-hive
Essential Functions:
- Lead all aspects of HIVE operations, ensuring the facility and its virtual resources effectively serve the full spectrum of business stages from ideation to high-growth scaling.
- Create and execute consistent marketing on web, social media and other areas as appropriate to amplify HIVE activity, and events. Work with internal and external partners to design and execute data-driven campaigns that amplify HIVE success stories and drive regional awareness.
- Oversee small business grant program, ensuring the strategic and compliant distribution of funds to foster local business growth.
- Collaborate with City leadership to develop and execute a strategic plan to establish an environment for existing companies to test and scale software and products.
- Design and coordinate a rolling calendar of transformational programming, including ideation workshops for dreamers, accelerators for high-growth founders, and product-testing forums for tech companies.
- Actively build and nurture a network of strategic partners, including venture capitalists, angel investors, universities, and technical service providers to support high-growth scaling.
- Supervise assigned staff and contracted program teams, ensuring quality assurance and high performance across all HIVE service lines.
- Serve as the primary representative for the City’s entrepreneurship efforts, presenting data-driven updates on ecosystem health to City Council and regional business forums.
- Track and report performance metrics, measuring outcomes such as business supported, jobs, and capital raised.
- Conduct ongoing research into national trends regarding innovation hubs and high-growth startup ecosystems to inform local policy and strategy.
The City offers a generous benefits package, which includes health, dental and life insurance, retirement and savings plans, maternity/paternity and parental leave, holidays and Paid-Time-Off.
Minimum Requirements: Bachelors degree in public administration, marketing, or related and six (6) years of experience utilizing the knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with such positions as business development representative OR and equivalent combination of education (above high school level) and/or experience equivalent to ten (10) years in fields such as economic or community development, real estate and advertising, business administration, marketing, management, public administration, or planning which provide the required knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with this position.
Preferences:
• A degree in business administration, public administration, or a related field.
• Extensive experience in economic development, specifically working with startups, innovation hubs, accelerators, or incubators.
• Proven experience in managing grant programs and public-private partnership
• Demonstrated experience manage project teams, professional staff, and external vendors.
• Experience working in and with the Hampton Roads and Virginia Beach business communities and recognizing regional economic priorities.
• Experience preparing high-level publications and reports, with a track record of successful presentations to elected officials and community partners.
• Proficiency in using CRM platforms for tracking business engagement and performance metrics.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to lead through influence and collaboration.
The City of Virginia Beach is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Skills Required
- Bachelors degree in public administration, marketing, or related
- Six years of experience in business development or related fields
- Experience with economic development and innovation hubs
- Experience managing grant programs and partnerships
- Experience with project teams and external vendors
- Experience with the Hampton Roads and Virginia Beach business communities
- Experience preparing high-level publications and reports
- Proficiency in using CRM platforms
- Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills
What We Do
Home to more than 456,000 people, Virginia Beach is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the 39th largest city in the United States. A dynamic community strengthened by a diverse mix of industry, attractions and people, Virginia Beach is recognized globally as one of the best places to live, work and do business. With 38 miles of beaches and 79 miles of scenic waterways, this vibrant East Coast city is situated along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, in the southeastern corner of the state, about a four-hour drive by car to Washington D.C., and within a day's drive or less from two-thirds of the U.S. population. The City of Virginia Beach LinkedIn page has a wealth of multimedia content available for review. The posted media is copyrighted and owned by the City and may not be downloaded, copied, or linked to without the express written permission of the City. Any media displayed by or linked from the City of Virginia Beach LinkedIn page or VirginiaBeach.gov that was not created by the City has been used with permission from the copyright holder.
