Expertise France is recruiting a dynamic and proactive individual to join our team as an Open Innovation & Start-up Manager for the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator project. An expertise in Corporate Venturing, Innovation projects and Tech Startups assessment is required. 

• The candidate  will assume the posture of a senior expert in the Corporate Venturing field, demonstrating the ability to proactively propose initiatives, drive process improvements, and deliver strategic and operational recommendations.
  
  

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JOB DESCRIPTION: 

The selected candidate will be responsible for keeping the stakeholders engaged within their whole acceleration journey. The main part of the job will “Account Management”.

More precisely, once corporates have expressed their need for a digital technology solution, the main goal of the Open Innovation & Start-up Manager is to provide them support throughout the whole acceleration process: from selecting the right partner (start-up scouting) to the definition and follow up of the Acceleration Services.

It means supporting the corporates who have expressed challenges with :

• Finding good start up candidates (Solution provider - Start up Scouting) to answer this challenge
  
• The management of proposal made by start-ups (consideration of the Solutions Proposed, assessment & selection)
  
• The organization of match-making meetings between the corporates & the startups (solution provider with the corporates seeking solutions)
• The final choice of the right start-up to select & conduct the POC with
• The definition of the acceleration roadmap that the partnership will follow (In a consultant “Mentor role”, selection of the relevant modules from the acceleration catalogue services for this specific partnership)

It is important to precise that though the “Account Management” remains the core of this job position, Prospection tasks, that we can describe as “Business Development” will also be necessary in order to maintain the size of the Portfolio to management, and fill the project pipeline with Open Innovation Challenges.

• This means to be willing and capable of managing a Lead Pipeline, from generation to transformation, leveraging traditional B2B Sales skills such as prospection, discovery, solution proposal, towards our typical target and Persona : the Chief Innovation Officers.
  
  
• More precisely, it means being able to connect with Chief Innovation officers from our database, in order to raise Open Innovation “Challenges” that he would then “Solve” through the Startup scouting mentioned above. 

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Drawing on experience in Innovation sector support and Open Innovation projects, the Open innovation & Start-up Manager will play a critical role in supporting partnerships (meaning 1 corporate “Challenge holder” and one Start up “Solution provider”) across Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean to benefit from the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator Services.

He/she will be responsible for the partnerships to actually turn live. The person should demonstrate good client relationship management and be able to understand both technological challenges on one side, and technical value proposition on the other side, in order to identify relevant synergies.

• A big part of the job consists in finding and selecting potential solution providers to existing challenges ("start up scouting"). It requires having a good understanding of what Digital Transformation means to Corporates, as well as knowing how Digital Start-up produce value. Uding Databases as CrunchBase, what is a good start up candidate for a Corporates and their Open Innovation Team. How to build the best, the most relevant Corporate Venturing couple (Venture Clienting mode), the one that will be most likely to succeed, in due time.
  
  
• The second challenge consists in getting from the Matchmaking stage (good solution provider identified) to an actual signed partnership where both parties contractuallyagree to go further and start the collaboration around the concretely defined POC project.
  
  
• Last point, he should help to design the acceleration roadmap that the partners will follow (Business case / Proof of Concepts / Investment services) according to a precise understanding of the partner’s ambitions and needs, like an expert consultant in Corporate Venturing would.

This position offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to fostering digital innovation and collaboration between regions as well as contributing to sustainable economic development in the LAC region.

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More specifically, the responsibilities include:

• Open Innovation ecosystem clear understanding: leverage the value of each stakeholders type (Corporates, Start-ups, other innovation enablers) onboarded in the program or identified as good relevant candidate (i.e. “lead”). This portfolio of stakeholders will be at your disposal, it will be your responsibility to activate it to engage them throughout the whole accelerator process (1. Expressing a challenge 2.Finding a solver 3. Provide the right acceleration services) 
• Account Management: Matching needs with Solutions: The program provides corporates expressing a challenge with a minimum of 3 good candidate (startups that seem to be compatible with them in terms of technology wanted). This will be the core of your job to be able to scout relevant start up from databases such as Crunchbase, generate results, sort them out, and eventually come up with a good quality shortlist to be presented to the corporate.  
  
• Business Development: Expanding the portfolio: in addition to taking care of the existing stakeholders in the portfolio, it will also be your responsibility to generate additional Open Innovation Opportunities, i.e. “Challenges”. Helping the rest of the team to onboard more Corporates in the project will also be regularly necessary, for raising more opportunities.
  
  
• Reporting and Documentation: Maintain accurate records of communication and interactions with participants. Provide regular updates and reports on progress, challenges, and successes to the project leader.

This position offers the opportunity to work in a dynamic and collaborative environment, contributing to the advancement of digital innovation and cooperation between the European Union, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

If you are passionate about driving positive change and have a knack for account management and partnerships, we encourage you to apply.