Program Manager (Innovation Consultant)
Our mission at Halo is to move science forward. One of Fast Company’s 2021 “World Changing Ideas,” Halo’s platform connects scientists directly with companies to bring new innovations to the world. We work with the R&D teams at global, iconic companies – including Bayer, P&G and PepsiCo – on topics ranging from sustainability to human health. Since going live in January 2020, more than 9,000 scientists from 100+ countries have joined. We are venture-backed by Asymmetric Capital, Village Global, Lightbank, Marketplace Capital, Anne Wojcicki (CEO of 23&Me), Lenny Rachitsky’s Air Angels (Airbnb angel group) and other top-tier investors.Read our reviews on Glassdoor and learn about our new partnership with the NSF.We are seeking a highly motivated Program Manager to serve as an innovation consultant for our industry partners.
You will establish the team responsible for understanding our customers’ innovation priorities and identifying the inventors (including university scientists and early-stage startups) capable of addressing their technology needs.
What you’ll do:
- Manage technology scouting projects end-to-end, including but not limited to understanding clients’ requests, coordinating with the Operations team on project delivery, managing logistics, and ensuring success.
- Conduct intake meetings with customers to understand their scouting goals and requirements and provide consultative advice on how to optimize the outcomes of their technology scouting projects.
- Monitor the performance of technology scouting projects in partnership with the Customer Success, Product, Analytics and Marketing teams to guarantee all projects adequately meet customers’ goals.
- Recruit, manage and run the Innovation Tech Scouts program, Halo’s fellowship program for PhD students and postdocs.
- Lead and manage Halo’s Scientific Advisory Board of key technical advisors across disciplines.
- Closely partner with the Product and Analytics teams to introduce new features to improve scouting and customer outcomes.
- Conduct in-depth research to identify emerging technologies, trends, and solutions relevant to our clients’ needs using popular publication, grant and patent databases (PubMed, SBIR/STTR, NSF, Google Scholar, Google Patents, etc.) and tech scouting tools (Semantic Search, Clarivate, CB Insights, Pitchbook, etc.).
- Lead partnerships with external scientific organizations (including societies, conferences, journals and more) to assess and prioritize partnership opportunities, define mutually beneficial goals, and implement infrastructure to execute, measure and scale partnerships.
Who you are:
- You have a strong academic background in a STEM field such as life sciences, physical sciences, or engineering.
- You have 3+ years experience in a client-facing role (customer success manager, management consultant, partnerships lead).
- You are a project management pro, known for your organization, attention to detail, and respect for deadlines.
- You can work cross-functionally with teams in product, marketing, sales, customer success and business operations.
- You are a skilled verbal and written communicator and hold your own in a room with senior stakeholders.
- You are particularly skilled in translating complicated scientific concepts for non-technical audiences.
- You are self-motivated with outstanding ownership and results-oriented mindset.
- You have a bias for action and thrive in an unpredictable, fast-paced work environment.
- You are passionate about our mission to “move science forward.”
- You take your work seriously but don’t take yourself too seriously. While technically a job, this shouldn’t feel like work because you're inspired by the mission and energized by the challenge.
Bonus points if:
- You have 2+ years experience in people management.
- You have worked at an early-stage startup.
- You have prior experience collaborating between academia and industry for R&D.
