The Role
Are you a natural leader with a strong network, driven to tackle your city's biggest challenges and connect diverse groups to make things happen? If so, you belong at Venture Café!
At Venture Café, we aim to create a global community of innovators with equal access to resources and opportunities, addressing our most pressing challenges. Ready to make an impact with us?
The Venture Café Global Institute (VCGI) seeks a strategic, dynamic, and self-driven Director to lead the launch and operation of Venture Café in Manchester. This is a unique opportunity to establish and operate a hub for innovation and connection, in close collaboration with ARIA.
ABOUT VENTURE CAFÉ
Venture Café believes that Isolation is the enemy of innovation and our mission is clear: Connect innovators to make things happen. We are a neutral and trusted center of gravity that connects the entire innovation ecosystem and is available for everyone.
Our flagship program, the Thursday Gathering, is a dynamic and intentionally designed experience freely accessible to all. Featuring vibrant networking sessions activated with captivating demos or immersion in the night’s theme by attending thought-provoking sessions led by inspiring speakers. Here, curiosity meets opportunity, connections flourish, and innovation thrives.
Venture Café was founded by Tim Rowe, founder and CEO of the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), in 2009 and helped fuel the growth of one of the world’s most powerful innovation ecosystems: Boston’s Kendall Square. What began with a modest gathering of 12 people at our inaugural Thursday Gathering has flourished into the Venture Café Global Institute (VCGI). Over the past 15 years, VCGI has united over 750,000 visionaries, developers, creatives, and civic leaders across 15 cities worldwide, building a global community of communities.
At VCGI, we believe if we’re going to solve humankind’s biggest challenges, we need as many amazing humans as possible involved in that process.
YOUR DAY-TO-DAY WORK
Reporting to the Executive Director, Venture Cafe United Kingdom, you will build and lead the Venture Café Manchester team, launching and directing programming for the Thursday Gathering and other ecosystem-building activities. Your goal is to ensure Venture Café programming connects local innovators to the national and international entrepreneurship community.
Your role would be to launch and execute weekly Venture Café Thursday Gatherings including the following:
• Collaborating closely with VCGI and ARIA to develop the launch strategy for Venture Café Manchester and leading the execution of the launch plan.
• Working closely with the Executive Director, Venture Cafe United Kingdom to ensure success and align initiatives where appropriate.
• Scoping and developing a yearly programming strategy to inspire and connect the local innovation community.
• Collaborate with the ARIA team and Programme Directors to drive value to the ARIA Opportunity Spaces.
• Scoping and securing foundational financial partners for Venture Café Manchester and building a pipeline for funding opportunities.
• Identifying and partnering with local ecosystem leaders as an advocate and spokesperson to build diverse and inclusive programs.
• Developing innovative program formats for delivering content and creating connection opportunities to maximize engagement.
• Leading and overseeing strategic planning, impact measurement and program budget for Venture Café programs in Manchester.
• Attracting funding for programs and aligning them within the Thursday Gathering framework.
• Hiring, leading, and coaching your direct reports towards success.
• Continuously reviewing and implementing improvements/changes to ensure the ongoing success and reputation of Venture Café Manchester.
• Collaborating with the Venture Café global network and ARIA to connect the Manchester community to global opportunities.
• Identifying and mitigating risks to the effective operation of the Thursday Gathering.
• Nurturing existing initiatives to support Venture Café’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging (DEIB) efforts, while bringing a visionary approach to developing and expanding DEIB-driven programming and partnership opportunities.
ABOUT YOU
You understand your city’s challenges and see them as opportunities, combining a fascination with trends and a humanistic perspective. Passionate about mission-driven work, you'll lead Venture Café Manchester by nurturing relationships, leading teams, and thriving in ambiguity. Your skills include leading programs, matchmaking, innovating, connecting with the community, and fostering collaboration. You are comfortable with public speaking, have excellent communication skills, and excel at connecting across business, academia, government, and civil society. You bring a global outlook with local roots and a strong community commitment.
More specifically, you thrive in:
• Leading people and complex programs.
• Being a match-maker extraordinaire and seeing opportunities at the intersections of people, ideas & resources.
• Envisioning, developing and implementing innovative program experiences.
• Connecting with a broad cross-section of the community.
• Bringing people together to collaborate towards a common goal.
• Identifying and developing mutually beneficial partnerships.
Additionally, you have:
• Knowledge of Manchester's start-up community, key influencers, networks and organizations.
• Excellent organizational, project, and task management skills.
• Experience securing funding opportunities and a network of potential funders. Familiarity with digital media channels. An ability to leverage them as part of your work.
• Comfort in Google Suite, WordPress, Salesforce, email campaign software (e.g. MailChimp), and project management software.
• Availability to work at the weekly Venture Café Thursday Gathering from 3-9pm.
• Fluency in English.
• Ability to legally work in the UK.
We are unable to sponsor visas for this role at this time.
OUR OFFER
• Employment contract.
• Competitive compensation based on experience
• Additional benefits in development
Venture Café welcomes all candidates regardless of race, color, ancestry, gender identity or expression, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status or disability. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) and has not been reviewed or approved by CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center).
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Healthcare Strength — Employer-paid medical, dental, disability, and life insurance for full-time staff are prominently offered, with some indications of deductible coverage. Feedback suggests this makes healthcare a strong pillar of total compensation.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid sick leave, PTO and bereavement, plus local holiday calendars with options to work and bank floating days, widen time-off options. Feedback suggests these provisions are broadly valued, while specifics can vary by location.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Flexible schedules where roles allow and onsite amenities like stocked kitchens, wellness sessions, bike parking, showers, and pet-friendly offices enhance day-to-day experience. Feedback suggests these perks contribute meaningfully to overall benefits satisfaction.
CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) Insights
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The Company
What We Do
CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) helps exceptional entrepreneurs around the globe innovate better and faster. In service of fixing the world through innovation, CIC creates the highest quality infrastructure and programing for innovators. This includes flexible and custom office space; shared wet lab facilities; civic innovation spaces; and targeted initiatives to support changemakers, disruptors, and out-of-the-box thinkers in growing their companies.
