Innovation Clusters Lead

Future Lab Studio, Innovation Village’s Venture Building, Founder Support and Corporate Innovation Unit is seeking a best-in-class Innovation Clusters Lead to scale our multisectoral Innovation Clusters. This critical role offers the platform to convene the best talent around key sectors of Uganda’s and Africa’s economy that are using technology to transform lives and livelihoods of millions.

About the Innovation Village

The Innovation Village is Uganda’s launchpad for leading innovators and entrepreneurs. We are building an entire ecosystem of entrepreneurs and innovators in what is growing to become a business solutions provider for our biggest challenges or opportunities. From helping entrepreneurs launch and grow high-impact ventures to attracting regional and global opportunities, our ecosystem approach converges multiple partners including public, private, academia, research, and civil society as one force for good.

Through regional spaces in the capital Kampala, Jinja to the eastern, Gulu to the northern and Mbarara to the western parts of the Uganda, Innovation Village fuels the growth of game-changing founders, startups and enterprises that can positively transform our communities and economies.

About Future Lab Studio

Future Lab Studio (“the Studio”) partners with and supports exceptional Founders and Executives solving Africa’s most pressing challenges by using technology to overcome systemic constraints. Leveraging multisectoral innovation themes cutting across various technologies, the Studio empowers innovators through a range of innovation, incubation, and acceleration journeys to build, refine or scale scalable solutions, and to access market opportunities from across our partner network, connecting the best progressing teams to stage-relevant capital from across the Studio’s capital ecosystem.

The Opportunity

At our core, the Studio convenes outstanding opportunities, tools, capital, and advice that empower Founders and Executives building and scaling category-leading tech and tech-enabled solutions to Africa’s pressing challenges.

We do this through multisectoral Innovation Clusters in areas like Automating Trust, Digital Inclusion and Climate Action where we converge Founders, Executives, Domain Experts and Investors with the passion, dedication, networks, experience and expertise in solving for the most complex challenges in these thematic areas using technology. We are especially keen on the intersection of the thematic topics with our focus on Agriculture, Education and MSME sectors.

We are looking for a Best-in-Class Innovation Clusters Lead to build out this most critical pillar of our work.

Working across our Innovation Clusters, you will own the overall process of thematic programme and curriculum design, contribute towards attracting and selecting outstanding founders to join our Venture Building and Founder Support programs, source sector-specific Angel and Venture Capital Investors, onboard Corporate and Entrepreneur Support Organization partners, and will steer activities that convene, engage, and scale the Communities of Practice around the various clusters.

You are an exceptional and passionate community builder working strategically to converge and engage broad spectra of interdisciplinary teams around thematic opportunities. You are deeply analytical with a unique ability to communicate complex ideas effectively. You have brilliant research skills and the ability to integrate multiple data sources to inform complex problems. You have advanced capabilities in breaking down and solving problems through quantitative thinking, modeling, and analysis.

You are a natural team player with the ability to work independently. You have a solid grasp of key Venture Building, modern Management and Product Development concepts, with the ability to extract and communicate opportunities. An experienced entrepreneur, you can identify scalable opportunities across a broad array of industries, coaching Founders and Executives to strategically position to and sustainably exploit them. You possess a deep sense of personal and professional integrity and work best in a fast-paced startup environment, driven by a deep sense of mission.

You will work closely with the Future Lab Studio Lead, with support from the Venture Design and Growth Services Leads to build world-class Communities of Practice around our multisectoral Innovation Clusters. You will leverage these Communities of Practice to design and deliver Innovation Programs aimed at catalyzing Founders, Executives and Domain Experts to use technology and entrepreneurship to solve systemic challenges in these sectors. You will converge aligned and stage-relevant capital to enable the most promising solutions to scale. Specifically, you will:

• Establish and scale multisectoral Innovation Clusters.
• Cultivate Communities of Practice convened in the Innovation Clusters to provide outstanding support to Founders and Executives solving systemic challenges in these sectors.
• Convene sector-aligned early-stage investors to back the most promising solutions coming out of the Innovation Clusters.

• Have been part of the founding team or an early operator of a high-growth startup that successfully closed funding, or played an active role in building an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
• Have considerable Project or Program Management Experience
• Have substantial domain expertise in at least one of the sectors underpinning the Innovation Clusters.
• Have more than 5 years of senior management experience, including experience driving strategy and execution.
• Are an expert problem solver with the ability to break down and communicate complex ideas effectively.
• Experience investing in early-stage startups an added advantage.
• Have a deep personal network of Founders, Executives, Venture Capitalists, and Startup talent.
• Have outstanding organizational skills and are comfortable with multi-tasking and managing competing priorities.
• Have exceptionally high EQ and enjoy working with people with diverse backgrounds.
• Experience designing and managing innovation programs an added advantage.
• Experience coaching and supporting Founders or Senior Leadership towards sustained change.
• Experience working with Senior Executives and strategic investors.
• Strong ability to cultivate and maintain high valued relationships and manage multiple counterparties and workstreams.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and able to problem solve effectively with the grit to pivot effectively and refocus on driving forward to successful outcomes.
• Culturally and functionally agile and a strong business and thought partner who works collaboratively and effectively cross-functionally with colleagues at all levels in an organization.
• Highly comfortable in fluid, rapidly changing environments with a proven ability to work independently and demonstrate problem-solving leadership with limited oversight.

Why You Might Be Excited About Us

• The platform to influence the creation and delivery of ground-breaking innovations with the ability to create better outcomes for millions of Ugandans and beyond
• Opportunity to impact the direction and success of Future Lab Studio, and by extension, The Innovation Village
• The opportunity to gain broad experience across multiple sectors.