Manager – Mentoring & Accelerator Programs

The role involves managing and growing our mentoring ecosystem, curating accelerator programs, and supporting early-stage startups through structured interventions.The ideal candidate brings a strong academic background in science/engineering/medical domains and first-hand experience in startup leadership or innovation management.

Job Description

• Provide strategic leadership to a portfolio of activities centered around mentoring, acceleration, and advanced startup support.

• Conceptualize and lead the design and implementation of strategic incubation and acceleration programs.

• Serve as a key in-house mentor guiding startups through their growth journey, with a deep understanding of the challenges founders face.

• Build strong working relationships with incubated startups, offering structured mentoring and guidance around business planning, market access, fundraising readiness, and growth.

• Facilitate meaningful connections with external mentors, experts, and ecosystem enablers based on startup needs.

• Track progress and key milestones for supported startups and contribute to overall portfolio insights and reporting. 

• Collaborate closely with internal teams to ensure integrated support across funding, IP, regulatory, and other areas.

• Participate in proposal development, reporting, and strategic initiatives related to the mentoring and incubation vertical.

• Plan and execute high-value events, clinics, reviews, and touchpoints that enable startup success

Candidate Profile

• Master's or PhD in science, engineering, medical sciences, or related fields.
• 2–7 years of professional experience
• Experience with startup leadership (founder/CEO/COO level), or Senior roles in innovation management, venture building, or academic entrepreneurship programs preferred
• Experience with mentoring networks, startup programs, or ecosystem development is a strong plus.

Skills & Attributes

• Deep understanding of startup lifecycles

• Ability to assess startup needs across product, regulatory, team, and funding dimensions.

• Excellent interpersonal skills – adept at managing mentor-founder dynamics and cross-sector stakeholders.

• Program management experience with attention to detail, timelines, and stakeholder coordination.

• Passion for entrepreneurship, innovation, and societal impact.

General requirements and expectations from Venture Center employees:

• Venture Center is a non‐profit organization with aim to benefit society by promoting entrepreneurs and start‐ups. Thus, Venture Center seeks employees and consultants with a strong interest and passion in seeing technology innovators, entrepreneurs, and start‐ups succeed, and a strong "service" ethos.
• A strong feature of Venture Center jobs is the rich learning environment and opportunity provided to employees to experiment, take initiative and be creative. The work of most employees has visible impact which can be satisfying. All employees benefit from access to high quality facilities and work environments. Compensation packages can be flexible but are often conservative due to Venture Center’s non‐profit status.
• General requirements include: a) strong ethical standards and work ethics, b) comfort with computers, computer applications and internet, c) strong communication skills – spoken and written.
• Venture Center’s working hours are 9 AM – 6.00 PM (Monday to Saturday) and are designed to keep operations of Venture Center convenient for the start‐ups, entrepreneurs, inventors and others that the organization serves. Managers in certain functions are provided the opportunity to avail of flexible hours. All jobs are located at Pune, Maharashtra, India. 

Our Company is an equal-opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant based on age, color, disability, gender, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation or parental status.