Senior Programs Officer - Venture Ecosystem

About Ashesi University:

Our vision is a flourishing Africa whose leaders make ethical decisions in the best interests of their communities, and where innovation drives economic, cultural and social growth. We educate leaders who will make this vision a reality, and we collaborate with other institutions to multiply this work.

Joining Ashesi means becoming part of a vibrant community dedicated to excellence, innovation, and a transformed Africa. We provide opportunities for everyone to do their most meaningful work, through cross-functional collaboration in an environment that encourages intellectual and personal growth.

If you're seeking an environment that values diverse contributions, supports professional development, and enables you to work with purpose, come join our team

About the Center

The Ashesi Center for Entrepreneurship supports students and alumni as they move from early ideas to viable ventures through a structured entrepreneurship pipeline built around three stages: Idea, Project, and Venture. Through programs, grants, sector engagement, and partnerships, the Center equips builders to test ideas, develop solutions, and approach venture building with greater clarity and readiness.

The Center helps anchor entrepreneurship within the university by connecting it to faculty expertise, student and alumni development, and Ashesi’s wider contribution to innovation and economic development.

As it grows, it is strengthening the systems, evidence, and cross-functional discipline required to operate as a credible, high-performing platform for entrepreneurshipdevelopment.

About the Role
The Senior Programs Officer, Venture Ecosystem leads the delivery and performance of the Center for Entrepreneurship’s venture-development work and the development of an engaged Ashesi alumni founder community. The role manages the venture-development cycle from sourcing and selection through coaching, specialist support, milestone-based funding, venture reviews, and progression into relevant market, partnership, growth, and capital opportunities. It is responsible for ensuring that supported ventures have clear priorities, receive support aligned to their needs, and demonstrate measurable commercial and operating progress. Working closely with the Alumni Relations Office, the role also identifies and engages Ashesi alumni founders, including those outside the Center’s formal programs, and connects them to relevant support, opportunities, networks, and one another.

The role requires strong commercial judgment, program ownership, relationship and community management, execution discipline, and the ability to make sound support and progression recommendations based on evidence and readiness.

Reports to: Assistant Director, Operations

Key relationships: Director, Center for Entrepreneurship; Alumni Relations Office

Key Responsibilities

Lead Venture Development and Progression

• Lead implementation of the Center’s venture-development programs in line with approved strategy, program frameworks, budgets, and annual priorities.
• Manage the full program cycle, including venture sourcing, assessment, selection, onboarding, delivery, review, progression, and close-out.
• Maintain a current view of each supported venture, including its principal constraints, priorities, milestones, evidence requirements, support needs, and next review point.
• Ensure venture priorities and milestones are sufficiently clear and material to guide support and progression decisions.
• Monitor performance against agreed milestones and identify where support should be intensified, re-scoped, redirected, paused, or concluded.
• Lead formal venture reviews, make recommendations on continued support and progression, and ensure agreed decisions and actions are documented and followed through.
• Identify recurring delivery or progression issues and recommend improvements to strengthen venture outcomes.

Manage Venture Support and Funding

• Manage coaches, specialists, and other service providers, including assignment, expectations, coordination, quality, and accountability.
• Match ventures to appropriate expertise, services, and interventions based on identified commercial and operating needs.
• Manage milestone-based funding, including assessing requests against agreed priorities, evidence, milestones, and intended business outcomes and recommending release, re-scoping, withholding, or discontinuation in line with approved frameworks.
• Monitor funded work and assess whether further support is justified by execution, evidence, and progress.
• Ensure ventures meet required expenditure, reporting, evidence, and accountability requirements.
• Coordinate with relevant administrative teams to ensure approved support is deployed efficiently and in accordance with institutional requirements.

Build the Alumni Founder Community

• Work closely with the Alumni Relations Office to identify and engage Ashesi alumni founders and operating businesses, including those that have not participated in the Center’s formal programs.
• Maintain visibility of the alumni founder community, including relevant business activity, needs, capabilities, and opportunities for engagement.
• Create mechanisms for alumni founders to connect, exchange experience, access relevant opportunities, and remain engaged with the Ashesi entrepreneurship ecosystem.
• Connect alumni founders to appropriate Center support, expertise, programs, networks, and external opportunities based on their needs and readiness.
• Mobilize alumni founders, where appropriate, as mentors, peer advisors, customers, partners, investors, speakers, and other contributors to the wider entrepreneurship ecosystem.
• Maintain effective referral and follow-through between the Center and Alumni Relations on alumni founder engagement.

Enable Market, Growth and Capital Opportunities

• Assess venture readiness for customer, market, partnership, growth, and capital opportunities and identify material gaps that should be addressed before external engagement.
• Prepare and connect qualified ventures to appropriate buyers, investors, lenders, corporate partners, pilot partners, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Ensure opportunities are matched to ventures with the readiness and capacity to pursue them effectively.
• Track outcomes from external engagements, including pilots, contracts, partnerships, diligence, financing discussions, and resulting follow-through.
• Identify ecosystem relationships and opportunities that can benefit multiple ventures or strengthen the Center’s venture-support platform.

Manage Venture Evidence, Reporting and Improvement

• Ensure supported ventures submit timely, complete, and credible commercial, financial, customer, employment, funding, and operating data.
• Maintain accurate and current records of venture performance, milestones, support, funding, reviews, referrals, and progression decisions.
• Ensure venture reviews, funding recommendations, and reported outcomes are supported by appropriate evidence.
• Monitor portfolio performance to identify recurring constraints, progression patterns, emerging needs, and gaps in the Center’s support.
• Use portfolio evidence to recommend where interventions, resources, or specialist capacity should be strengthened, changed, or discontinued.
• Contribute accurate venture evidence and analysis to management, institutional, partner, and donor reporting.
• Document relevant learning to inform future delivery, resource allocation, and venture-support decisions.

Performance Expectations
Strong performance will be demonstrated by:

• high-quality and timely delivery of the Center’s venture-development work;
• supported ventures having clear priorities, milestones, support needs, and progression decisions;
• measurable commercial and operating progression across supported ventures;
• coaches, specialists, funding, and other Center resources being deployed against clearly identified venture needs and producing appropriate follow-through;
• qualified ventures progressing into relevant customer, market, partnership, growth, and capital opportunities;
• a growing and actively engaged Ashesi alumni founder community, including founders outside formal Center programs;
• strong collaboration with Alumni Relations in identifying, engaging, and connecting alumni founders; and
• credible venture and portfolio evidence informing support, funding, resource allocation, reporting, and program improvement.

Qualifications, Experience and Competencies
The successful candidate should have:

• a bachelor’s degree in Business, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Management, or another relevant discipline; a postgraduate qualification is an advantage;
• relevant professional experience in entrepreneurship, venture development, enterprise support, business growth, investment, advisory, or related work;
• demonstrated experience working directly with founders, SMEs, or operating businesses, preferably those with customers, revenue, pilots, deployments, or other market activity;
• experience managing complex programs, multiple concurrent engagements, and external coaches, advisors, consultants, or specialists;
• familiarity with milestone-based grants, venture funding, or other performance-linked support mechanisms;
• strong commercial judgment and the ability to assess venture constraints, performance, evidence, and support requirements without assuming responsibility for founder business decisions;
• strong relationship- and community-building skills, including the ability to engage founders at different stages and maintain productive institutional and ecosystem relationships;
• strong implementation and project-management capability, with the ability to maintain execution discipline across multiple priorities;
• the ability to use venture and portfolio evidence to inform support, funding, progression, resource allocation, and program improvement; and
• excellent written and verbal communication, sound judgment, strong documentation and follow-through, and the ability to hold founders and support providers accountable for agreed commitments.

What We Offer: Our success is driven by our people, which is why we offer a comprehensive compensation package. Compensation at Ashesi is regularly reviewed against industry benchmarks, and total compensation includes health insurance, retirement benefits, and paid leave, which are designed to support the holistic well-being of our staff.
We also invest in continuous learning, development and research opportunities, allowing our teams to grow with the university and achieve meaningful impact.

Application Process: Screening of applicants will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Kindly note that only shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview and may also be asked to conduct an academic seminar, research talk, teaching simulation or practical assessment.

Commitment to Diversity: Ashesi is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive staff and faculty. We encourage applications from candidates who will enrich and contribute to the cultural and academic diversity of our university.

Disability Confident:  Ashesi University is committed to taking positive steps to employ, keep and develop the abilities of staff with disabilities. Ashesi University is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to building faculty and staff committed to excellence and equity and encourages applications from people who value same.

Join us in shaping the future of Africa’s leadership.