Climate Venture Operations Intern
This internship is designed for someone excited to work at the intersection of founder support and program design in the climate and hard tech space. The intern will play a hands-on role in supporting Activate fellows as they build and scale hard-tech companies, while also helping strengthen and evolve our programming by building a robust pipeline of speakers, mentors, and collaborators and contributing to ecosystem development.
Key Responsibilities
- Direct Founder Support
- Leverage skills to directly support founders on core business and operational priorities (such as market/customer discovery, financial modeling, TEA, ops, etc.)
- Network Development & Program Strategy
- Build and manage a targeted pipeline of speakers and advisors to strengthen fellow support and founder programming.
- Potential Additional Responsibilities
- As part of the Activate NY team, the intern may have the opportunity to work on other priority projects, such as New York Climate Week, Fellow Recruitment, and others, according to their interests and the community’s needs.
Qualifications
- Startup & BizOps Exposure: Familiarity with and interest in early-stage startups from a business operations perspective, including market research, customer discovery, and financial modeling
- Tools & Systems Mindset: Experience with optimizing with tools and workflows
- Ecosystem & Relationship Building: Ability to build, maintain, and translate relationships across founders, operators, investors, and more
- Clear Communicator: Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with internal teams and external stakeholders
- Strategic & Structured Thinker: Ability to identify opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and impact within New York’s climate and hard-tech ecosystem
- Ownership & Initiative: Proactive, self-directed approach to identifying needs, taking ownership, and driving workstreams forward
- Teamwork & Positive Working Style: Collaborative mindset to work effectively with colleagues and contribute to a positive team dynamic
Background
About Activate
Activate empowers scientists and engineers to reinvent our world by bringing their research to market. We partner with leading funders and research institutions to offer the Activate Fellowship, providing the funding, community, mentorship, network, and time that scientists need to become entrepreneurs. The results are game-changing: Activate Fellows have launched 197 new companies since 2015. These companies have raised $4B in follow-on funding, created more than 2,800 U.S.-based jobs, and defined several new market categories. Activate supports fellows in Berkeley, CA; Cambridge, MA; New York, NY; Houston, TX; and across the U.S. through Activate Anywhere.
Activate New York
Our New York community of fellows collaborates with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) under New York State’s Carbon Tech Development Initiative. We are primarily focused on identifying, recruiting, and supporting applicants who are removing, storing, measuring, or transforming carbon dioxide and methane, in addition to other technologies that help mitigate the impacts of climate change - all key pillars of maintaining a livable planet. Our current fellow teams work across industries from buildings to oceans to underground to farmers’ fields, but they all share a passion for scaling impactful technologies. The New York Community collaborates with universities and ecosystem partners to build a thriving climate tech industry in the heart of the nation’s largest city.
Location
The New York team works in a hybrid model, three days a week, from our Manhattan office. Ideally, the intern would also be hybrid to facilitate collaboration with the team and fellows. Some location flexibility may be available.
Encouraging Applications from All Backgrounds
We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a welcoming workplace for all employees. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status. We will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. Activate Global, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
