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Associate Director, Center for Entrepreneurship


Job Location:

Nashville, TN - USA

Monthly Salary: Not provided by the employer
Posted: 22 August 2026 (30 days ago)
Application Deadline: 19 November 2026
Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

Description
Job Description
The Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University seeks a dynamic and innovative Associate Director within the Center for Entrepreneurship. This position is crucial in fostering a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem for Vanderbilt founders. The ideal candidate will have operational and strategic experience inside of startups.

The Owen Graduate School of Management (OGSM) is a professional school at Vanderbilt University located in Nashville Tennessee focused on graduate-level business education. OGSMs mission is to create opportunities for its faculty staff and students to discover grow and thrive in business and beyond. OGSM recognizes discovery in traditional forms such as scholarly research intellectual curiosity and curricular learning. But it also celebrates discovery unique to the human experience that is the art of becoming which is lived through a desire to connect with others to find meaning in work and relationships and to create something new. OGSM sees transformation as foundational.

Duties and Responsibilities
  • Engage and Support Vanderbilt Founders:
    • Use research marketing and other techniques to grow demand for services from Vanderbilt founders.
    • Design workflows to efficiently intake founders into the C4E ecosystem including but not limited to designing digital and human intake processes which assess startup status and prescribe C4E resources.
    • Lead C4E workshops and speaker series including but not limited to redesigning workshop content and progression based on founder needs; designing new exercises and tools to support workshop learning objectives; recruiting speakers as needed; working with other C4E resources to drive attendance; teaching and/or moderating sessions; and gathering feedback to improve future offerings.
    • Provide 1:1 mentoring to startup founders as appropriate.
  • Grow the Alumni Mentor Program:
    • Build processes to attract categorize and onboard Alumni mentors within the Centers CRM tool.
    • Lead processes to prepare founders for mentorship and create mechanisms that match founders with mentors.
    • Build systems to gather feedback on interactions from both sides of the marketplace to improve the design of the matching program and achieve a net promoter score of 70.
  • Drive the Vanderbilt Venture Scout Program:
    • Coordinate with alumni advisors and student leaders to grow the sophistication of marketing intake and investment memo development capabilities so that the Venture Scouts support 20 founders a year with 50% receiving funding.
    • Work with student leaders to develop more sophisticated marketing interview selection onboarding training and evaluation of Venture Scout students.
  • Execute Grant Competitions:
    • Strategize and execute marketing strategies to drive 120 student-led startup applications annually to the Firestarter Chancellors Launch Grants and Summer Enterprise Development Grant competitions.
    • Refine selection criteria feedback mechanisms and evaluation processes to select the most deserving Vanderbilt startups as winners of each competition.
    • Oversee programmatic aspects for grant competition winners including coordination of payments access to in-kind products and services matching with mentors access to special lectures and events and progress check ins as appropriate.
  • Other duties as assigned

Supervisory Relationships

This position does not currently have supervisory responsibility; this position reports administratively and functionally to the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.

Education Experience and Skills

  • Bachelors degree required.
  • Minimum of 3-5 years of experience inside of venture-backed startups or portfolio operations of a venture capital fund.
  • Demonstrated history of taking initiative and working autonomously to solve problems with a proven ability to deliver against organizational key performance indicators.

  • Strong interpersonal communication and organizational skills.

  • Knowledge of the startup landscape and resources available for entrepreneurs.

  • Familiarity with the Vanderbilt University environment and culture.

  • Relationships with noteworthy entrepreneurial figures and/or entities who can provide meaningful resources to Vanderbilt founders.

  • Passion for entrepreneurship and supporting student innovation.





Required Experience:

Director


About Company

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At Vanderbilt University , our work - regardless of title or role - is in service to an important and noble mission in which every member of our community serves in advancing knowledge and transforming lives on a daily basis. Located in Nashville , Tennessee, on a 330+ acre campus and ... View more

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