Program Manager, Venture Café Berlin - DE

VENTURE CAFÉ BERLIN - PROGRAM AND EXPERIENCE DESIGN MANAGER Are you ready to be at the heart of Berlin's innovation scene? Venture Café Berlin is on the lookout for a passionate Program and Experience Design Manager to lead our flagship Thursday Gathering and other groundbreaking initiatives.

Join us in creating a dynamic and inclusive community where innovators connect, collaborate, and drive change. If you're excited about making a real impact and fostering a vibrant ecosystem, you belong at Venture Café Berlin!

ABOUT VENTURE CAFÉ GLOBAL INSTITUTE (VCGI) & VENTURE CAFÉ BERLIN Venture Café Global Institute (VCGI) began in 2009 within the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) in Massachusetts, aiming to connect people, ideas, and resources globally. Today, it has grown into a worldwide movement, facilitating over 660,000 connections among innovators, creatives, and leaders across cities like Boston, St. Louis, Rotterdam, and Tokyo. VCGI's mission is to drive global change by building a community of communities focused on solving humankind’s biggest challenges.

Venture Café Berlin will launch in Q4 2024 alongside strategic partner CIC. Venture Café Berlin partners with companies and organizations that are evolving business, education, technology, social justice, science and the arts within Berlin and beyond. Our flagship Thursday Gathering convenes hundreds of creative, resourceful people who are just as invested in improving life on this planet as you are. 

YOUR DAY-TO-DAY WORK The Thursday Gathering is a vibrant weekly event that brings together Berlin's innovation community. You will be responsible for curating and managing this event, fostering an inclusive and open environment for the innovation community. Your role includes creating and implementing programming that reaches underserved communities, advancing the mission of making Berlin’s innovation community more diverse, inclusive, accessible, and connected.

Your role would be to execute weekly Venture Café Thursday Gatherings including the following: • Curating and managing the weekly event to ensure smooth operations and an inclusive environment. • Creating programming for underserved communities and organizing informal social gatherings for networking. • Structuring educational sessions and managing partnerships to offer diverse, high-quality content. • Building and maintaining a communications infrastructure, including the website, social media, and mailing lists, while managing a volunteer corps. • Handling event logistics, partnering with key community members, and staying engaged in the local innovation scene. • Advocating for Berlin’s innovation communities, connecting people for collaborations, and managing other related programs. • Embracing a startup-like environment, multitasking, envisioning projects, and experimenting with new ideas to advance the mission.

ABOUT YOU You are deeply involved in innovation, the arts, and/or entrepreneurship initiatives, preferably in a founding, leadership, or advocacy role, with a solid understanding of the innovation process. You believe that innovation and entrepreneurship are instruments to improve the human condition, recognizing their many forms beyond apps and VC-funded startups. You are familiar with the Fukuoka community and its key players, seeing its challenges as opportunities for growth and possessing the ability to build strong local partnerships. Additionally, you have:

• Experience with event envisioning, curation, planning, and implementation. • Excellent organizational, project, and task management skills. • Familiarity with social media channels and ability to leverage them as part of your work. • Strong relationship with technology. Familiarity with Google Apps and WordPress, a big plus. • Availability to work at the weekly Venture Café Thursday Gathering from 3-8pm. • Fluency in English. • Communicative German is a plus. • Ability to legally work in Germany. We are unable to sponsor visas for this role at this time.

OUR OFFER • Competitive salary, commensurate with experience. • Permanent contract. • Commuting / Transportation allowance. • Gym card. • Private pension plan. • Allocated budget for training (customized to specific requirements of the role and organization's objectives). •  Opportunities for training and development led by VCGI. •  Travel to Venture Café locations across the globe.

Please submit your application in English. Thank you!

Venture Café and CIC welcome all candidates regardless of race, color, ancestry, gender identity or expression, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status or disability. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.