Early Stage Ventures, Program Manager

Special Instructions to Applicants: In PDF form, applicants should attach a resume and cover letter in the Supporting Documents section of the application.

About Rice

Boasting a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has a 6-to-1 undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio and a residential college system, which supports students intellectually, emotionally, and culturally through social events, intramural sports, student plays, lecture series, courses, and student government. Developing close-knit, diverse college communities is a strong campus tradition, which is why Rice is highly ranked for best quality of life and best value among private universities.

Rice is also a wonderful place to work. Rice faculty, staff, and students share values that are essential to our success as a healthy community. Those values guide our decisions and behaviors and shape Rice’s culture. They come through in how we treat each other and the welcome we extend to our visitors. These values can be recalled simply by our name — RICE — Responsibility, Integrity, Community, and Excellence.

Position Summary

The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (Lilie) is seeking a Program Manager to lead our Early Stage venture programs. This is a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation and help Rice entrepreneurs take their first steps towards bringing their ideas to life. In this role, you will serve as the first point of contact for many of the students interested in entrepreneurship at Rice. You will work closely with students to understand their passions and help them make tangible, real-world progress towards realizing their dream. In practice, this means you will facilitate mentorship and networking opportunities, develop and lead co-curricular and accelerator programs, and manage relationships with partners, sponsors, and key stakeholders to ensure that Lilie’s early stage recruitment and venture acceleration efforts are a success. Lilie is a small, ambitious team that works collaboratively to achieve amazing results, employing an iterative creation process where we share our work early and often.

Lilie is the beating heart of entrepreneurship, innovation, venture capital, and research commercialization for the whole Rice University campus. Our Center combines over 50 for-credit, experiential courses every year with a suite of programs, resources, competitions, and accelerators to help entrepreneurs and innovators at every stage of their journey. Our mission is to serve Rice University students, faculty, and alumni from all majors and degree programs in helping them go from idea to real-world impact. We’ve been ranked as the #1 Graduate Entrepreneurship program in the country for the last 6 years in a row, but need your help to aim even higher in the future.

The ideal candidate works collaboratively and has strong opinions that are adaptable to new information. The ideal candidate is a proactive communicator and service-oriented, through and through.

Workplace Requirements

Rice Business primarily delivers residential classes and activities taking place almost daily between 7 am and 10 pm. We value a highly collaborative and community-based culture, with expectations to provide in-person support and services to all members of our community. Remote work options are limited. Most employment activities are required to be performed in person and on campus. This in-person approach is central to the successful achievement of our research and academic missions. Per Rice policy 440, work arrangements may be subject to change.

This position is exclusively on-site, necessitating all duties to be performed in-person on campus Monday through Friday, from 9 am – 5 pm. 

Hiring Range

This is a full-time, benefits-eligible position, and the salary will be commensurate with experience and qualifications. *Exempt (salaried) positions under FLSA are not eligible for overtime.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• 4  years of entrepreneurship, program management, and/or start-up experience 
  • In lieu of the experience requirement, additional related education, above and beyond what is required, may be substituted on an equivalent year-for-year basis.

Skills: 

• Ability to develop complex and/or multiple program partnerships and funding sources