Senior Operations Lead

The Senior Operations Lead works on the Vanderbilt Innovation Corps and Coalition Responsible for Excellence in Skills Training team in the Vanderbilt School of Engineering and Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Innovation, respectively. The ideal candidate embodies a demonstrated commitment to, and interest in entrepreneurship, innovation-driven enterprise, commercialization, workforce development, and economic development. The Senior Operations Lead is a senior administrative leader responsible for advancing the innovation-driven enterprise development and workforce development enterprise of the institution by ensuring the seamless execution of high-impact programs and partnerships. This role plays a central part in developing and scaling the university’s innovation hubs, translating strategic priorities into operational systems that support innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, translational research, and convergent economic growth. The Senior Operations Lead manages the day-to-day operations of multi-institutional initiatives, aligning staffing, budgets, facilities, and compliance functions to deliver measurable outcomes. A core focus of the role is supporting programs that accelerate innovation-driven enterprise, industry collaboration, and deep-technology commercialization. The position also oversees workforce development initiatives aimed at preparing talent for innovation economy careers, coordinating closely with faculty, employers, and community partners and institutions. In addition to managing internal operations, the Senior Operations Lead helps steward relationships with enterprise partners and regional stakeholders to strengthen engagement across sectors. The role requires an agile, collaborative leader who can manage complexity while maintaining a clear focus on execution and impact. It is ideal for individuals with deep experience in research environments, entrepreneurial program management, and the infrastructure of innovation.

This is a full-time, on-site position, working 30 hours per week beginning at a 0.75 FTE level. The position is available for the term life of the grant, which expires in December 2027, with option of renewal.

The broader impact/commercial potential of the Mid-South I-Corps Hubs is the development of a sustainable innovation ecosystem that will impart shared economic prosperity across the US Mid-South region. The Mid-South Hub’s unique, formative, evidence-driven approach will inform how innovation ecosystems can be established in regions with primordial economic activity. This knowledge will augment team preparation, maximizing the value extracted from I-Corps training. The Hub will further amplify the downstream successes and sustainability of deep technology ventures, including grant acquisition, fundraising, sustainable revenues, and net-positive liquidity events.

This I-Corps Hubs project is based on the development of a scholarly incubator that uses data-driven approaches to develop best practices, influence economic policy, inspire adoption of approaches to innovation, and instruct future programmatic investments. Currently, a gap exists in understanding how regional innovation clusters can unify to drive the development of a prolific innovation ecosystem. Addressing this gap will enable policymakers and government agencies to implement evidence-based approaches to inform programmatic investments and maximize technology commercialization, economic development, and overall national innovation readiness. This consortium of deep technology-producing institutions from disparate locations within the Mid-South region will leverage the I-Corps program to catalyze technological commercialization, spur economic development, and inform the future of American innovation. The Hub will prioritize a formative, longitudinal assessment to iteratively optimize key activities, including team recruitment, Regional and National I-Corps training, upstream changes in university innovation culture, downstream impacts on successful commercialization, and an innovation corridor across the Mid-South. This will advance technology transfer from academic institutions into entrepreneurial ventures that seed emergent, regional ecosystems. This data-driven, performance improvement approach will ensure best practices are evidence-based and create a model for other regions seeking to induce innovation cluster development.

About the Coalition Responsible for Excellence in Skills Training, CREST
The Coalition Responsible for Excellence in Skills Training (CREST) project pilots a scalable model
for workforce development and shared economic prosperity for deployment across the State of Tennessee, the Mid-South region of the US, and beyond. CREST is spearheaded by an organized,
collaborative, cross-sector coalition that represents the three, customarily siloed, key ecosystem elements (“triumvirate aspects”) required to generate a robust workforce across any region: the community, the industry, and the education distributors. CREST is systematically designed to organize these siloed ecosystem elements into a system wherein the elements are empowered to intrinsically and synergistically support one another. The deployment of this scalable architecture for workforce development is paramount to repair and resurrect US competitiveness on the global stage and secure America’s economic prowess and national security. CREST will drive the upward economic mobility of impoverished and underrepresented citizens, empowering them to tangibly contribute to the forthcoming innovation economy that is poised to rejuvenate US competitiveness worldwide.
The experiential learning opportunity piloted by CREST will build skills and competencies necessary for participants to pivot into nationally certified biotechnician careers that will support the emergent biomedical innovation ecosystem arising across Tennessee and the Mid-South. The actuality of a trained workforce of biotechnicians is the foundational aspect of a biomedical innovation ecosystem. The social, cultural, and macroeconomic benefits and reasons to launch and/or relocate life science firms and biotechnology jobs to Tennessee are compelling. The major shortcoming of this imminent region is the lack of available, trained biotechnicians sourced from the local and regional community. The Urban League of Middle Tennessee, the Tennessee Coalition for Health Science and BioSTEM, and the Tennessee Board of Regents, each representing one of these triumvirate aspects, have assembled under the leadership of Vanderbilt University to pilot this novel model for workforce development. The first implementation of the CREST apparatus will be towards the development of a robust biotechnician workforce of the future in Tennessee. CREST will pilot and distribute, both state and region-wide, the CREST Biotechnician Bootcamp to train, certify, and transform cohorts of community participants into a nationally certified biotechnician workforce in 90 days. The CREST Biotechnician Bootcamp will not create a new biotechnology technician training curriculum but adapt proven, state-approved standards, immersive practices, and positive outcomes of the three-year, secondary education, Tennessee BioSTEM program into a 90-day bootcamp. The industrial element of CREST has such a tremendous need for a well-established STEM workforce that they are willing to fund fellowships and programs that provide a sustained supply of STEM-trained personnel. CREST will leverage this consistent source of demand by delivering the required supply – STEM-trained personnel - thus generating a positive feedback loop of prosperity and abundance. This pilot program is funded by the National Science Foundation Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies (ExLENT) Program with a two-year performance period with an PI-option one-year no-cost extension.

The Vanderbilt School of Engineering (VUSE) advances education, research, and innovation to prepare engineers to address complex challenges facing society. The School provides rigorous, interdisciplinary academic programs that integrate fundamental engineering principles with real-world application and discovery. VUSE supports a robust research enterprise spanning six major departments, fostering collaboration across disciplines and with partners in industry, government, and academia. It equips students and faculty with cutting-edge facilities, experiential learning opportunities, and an entrepreneurial mindset to translate ideas into impact. Through its commitment to excellence in teaching, research, and service, VUSE plays a vital role in shaping technological solutions that improve lives and contribute to economic and societal progress. The Innovation Corps team within VUSE seeks to collaborate cross-institutionally and inter-institutionally across a network of institutions to drive institutional initiatives that foster innovation excellence through the generation of impactful innovation-driven enterprises, enterprise through innovation-driven corporate and government partnerships, and economic development that showcases our institution’s standing as a critical thread in the fabric of our community of citizens.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Senior Operations Lead performs a variety of complex duties, ensuring the success of the Mid-South I-Corps Hub, the Vanderbilt Innovation Corps, CREST, and other innovation projects, generally. Responsibilities include:

Leadership, Administration and Organization:

• Serve as the principal advisor and thought partner to the unit Director or Managing Principal Investigator (PI), facilitating the execution of strategic initiatives.
• Translate the Director-led innovation hub, workforce enterprise, and economic development shared vision into actionable operational plans that align staff, budgets, and resources to support grant execution, operations implementation, and long-term strategic growth.
• Support multimillion-dollar grant and contract budget management, including financial reporting, procurement, subawards, and audits in collaboration with the Director/Managing PI and the Lead Grants Manager.
• Oversee and manage unit wide logistics, operations, management tools, financials, special projects, task forces, and high-impact reports or proposals to foundations, government agencies, and industry partners, all in collaboration with the appropriate support staff and personnel.
• Hire, onboard, and supervise staff, project managers, and administrative personnel; manage performance evaluations and team structures.
• Coordinate timelines, deliverables, and compliance for complex, multi-institutional or multi-PI research projects, ensuring alignment with sponsor requirements (e.g., NSF, NIH, DOE).
• Serve a liaison to external stakeholders, including institutional partners, government agencies, industry partners, foundations, and internal university offices.
• Support governance activities such as advisory board coordination, strategic planning efforts, and reporting to key institutional stakeholders.
• Lead and coordinate cross-functional projects involving tech transfer, innovation-driven enterprise, innovation coaching & consulting, enterprise engagement, and regional economic development.
• Represent the unit in meetings with institutional leadership and executive, deans, faculty, external stakeholders, and innovation ecosystem partners.
• Track progress toward KPIs aligned with innovation, commercialization, and economic development goals.
• Supervise staff supporting executive communications, project management, and operational execution.
• Coordinate strategic planning efforts and facilitate continuous improvement across programs and partnerships.

Lead Regional I-Corps Instructor:

• Co-lead the design and production of curriculum materials to support Innovation Corps programming, curriculum, courses, or other structured education as needed. This includes videos, print, and digital materials.
• Serve as Lead Regional Instructor for the Mid-South I-Corps Hub, delivering instructional content and leading regional cohorts to ensure program consistency and participant success.
• Oversee training and evaluation of regional I-Corps instructors across all Mid-South Hub partner institutions, establishing performance standards, delivering onboarding sessions, and supporting continuous improvement of instructional practices.
• Coordinate and support regional cohort logistics and program quality for Builder and Sullivan Family Ideator programs.
• Facilitate training and development of new I-Corps instructors across the Mid-South, ensuring consistent teaching standards and backchannel alignment.
• Lead cross-institutional collaboration, guiding partner universities in launching and scaling regional training programs.
• Participate as a core member of the Mid-South HUB leadership team, contributing to long-range planning, grant reporting, and strategy.

External Hub, CREST, and NIH REACH Management & Capacity Building:

• Supervise cross-functional program teams supporting the implementation of CREST and NIH REACH initiatives, ensuring alignment with grant goals, timelines, and compliance requirements.
• Oversee strategic planning, operational execution, and stakeholder engagement for both CREST (workforce development) and NIH REACH (commercialization readiness) initiatives.
• Serve as a liaison between project investigators, community partners, education providers, industry stakeholders, and government funders across CREST and REACH.
• Design and implement systems to monitor program performance metrics, participant outcomes, and workforce or commercialization impacts.
• Support cross-sector collaboration by organizing convenings, reporting outcomes, and cultivating relationships with regional employers and translational research teams.
• Develop and refine operational workflows for recruitment, training delivery, participant tracking, and data reporting for both programs.
• Identify opportunities to scale pilot initiatives into broader institutional or statewide models, in collaboration with university leadership and funding agencies.
• Collaborate with the communications team to disseminate success stories and strategic insights from CREST and REACH to external audiences and institutional leadership.
• Ensure program alignment with institutional research priorities and contribute to proposals for future funding and program expansion.

Supervisory Relationships: This position supervises a team of professional staff members and student interns as assigned, by providing clear performance expectations and regular feedback. This position reports administratively and functionally to the Hub Director of the Mid-South I-Corps Hub and the PI of CREST.

Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution of higher education or the equivalent years of experience is necessary.
• A Master’s degree from an accredited institution of higher education or the equivalent years of experience is strongly preferred.
• Experience as an entrepreneur and/or assisting in entrepreneurship, innovation, or deep-technology commercialization programs or centers is required.
• A high attention to detail is required.
• Familiarity with and leadership experience in the nonprofit, social sector, academia, or entrepreneurial fields strongly preferred.
• Experience with design thinking and/or leading innovation, entrepreneurial programming or innovation consortia strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with NSF I-Corps and Tech Transfer at institutions of higher education.
• Demonstrated interest in and commitment to service and the common good.
• Experience successfully supporting partnerships and collaborations with minimal oversight.
• Extremely well organized with excellent time management skills and the ability to successfully handle multiple programs at once.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with an ability to interact fluidly with the many different individuals and organizations that will contact and work with the I-Corps program.
• Experience navigating university policies and procedures.
• Proficient in office software tools (e.g., Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Airtable), and other software tools for communication, analysis, and office operations.
• Flexible with job expectations and schedule in an office that is on the cutting edge of innovation.
• Willing to jump in wherever needed.
• Positive, energetic, “can-do,” proactive entrepreneurial attitude with a passion for innovation and creativity.