Careers Job Description
General Description
MISSION
The City University of New York (CUNY) is the nation’s largest urban public university and serves 275,000 degree- seeking students and 200,000 non-degree students across 25 campuses. 77% are students of color. CUNY's core mandate is to provide a high-quality, affordable education to all New Yorkers. CUNY is a springboard of economic mobility. 42% of students hail from households earning less than $20,000. In recent decades, CUNY has lifted more individuals from the lowest economic quintile to the highest economic quintile than the Ivy League, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT combined. Furthermore, with 20,000 faculty, 29M square feet, and a growing capacity to commercialize technology in partnership with industry, CUNY has the assets, expertise, and talent needed to fuel the growth of NY businesses and the expansion of job opportunities across the five-boroughs and beyond.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Office of Careers and Industry Partnerships (OCIP) is responsible for mobilizing the university’s unparalleled scale, assets and diverse talent to fuel inclusive economic prosperity. OCIP is working to ensure that 1) CUNY graduates can launch or advance in sustaining careers of their choosing at salaries equivalent to their peers, 2) businesses can turn to CUNY to find the talent, services, and expertise they need to thrive, 3) faculty and staff come and stay at CUNY because the impact they can have on students’ career trajectory is unparalleled and recognized, and 4) sustainable funding streams support proven interventions for bolstering student career success today and for years to come.
OCIP is seeking an entrepreneurial professional to help grow CUNY’s inclusive economic mobility practice by creating and managing a portfolio of industry growth pilots designed to leverage CUNY’s assets and expertise to address barriers to business growth, while generating the revenue and job opportunities needed to sustain and expand proven career success initiatives. The role will be responsible for working with industry to identify and prioritize business challenges that might be addressed by CUNY resources and launching pilot initiatives to address them. Based in OCIP and reporting to the Director for Industry Growth and Partnerships, the Associate Director of Industry Growth will work closely with other units across CUNY, including the Office of Research, Office of Facilities Management, CUNY Economic Development Corporation, and divisions within the Office of Academic Affairs.
Other Duties
- Architect CUNY-specific solutions for supporting business growth: work with businesses and CUNY partners to identify business challenges that could be addressed by CUNY’s unique faculty/staff/student expertise, physical footprint, or other asset; prioritize possible products and services, with a focus on those that meet a market need with revenue generation potential.
- Lead testing, deployment, and monitoring of pilots: design and test an initial cohort of pilots in partnership with willing businesses; surface learnings on what interventions work best for supporting business growth, and what policies, structures, or initiatives might be needed to encourage such partnerships on a broader scale at CUNY.
- Support campus leadership, faculty, staff, and students in leading relevant pilots: engage campus communities in pilot design and implementation; document and share insights on unique campus strengths and necessary supports for fully realizing the participation of willing campus partners.
- Collaborate with CEWP/CUNY budget and operations teams to build ideal fiscal structure for reinvesting in proven Career Success efforts: working with partners from within CEWP and CUNY, develop a plan for how revenue from industry pilots will support the long-term growth of initiatives designed to improve the career success of CUNY graduates.
- Measure impact and hold parties accountable: promote ambitious, inspiring, and measurable goals for pilots; establish clear theory of change, metrics and systems for collecting, analyzing, evaluating, sharing, and acting upon data.
- Act as a knowledge-hub for partners within and outside of CUNY: Share insights on best practices and barriers to promoting industry-academic partnerships; represent CUNY in conversations with leadership of external organizations including but not limited to businesses, government, academia and philanthropy.
- Inform strategy and policy recommendations: contribute insights and recommendations to CUNY’s overall strategies for ensuring industry commits to CUNY because it has the resources businesses need to grow; identify and pursue potential policies that could further promote industry-academic collaboration.
- Support the narrowing of disparities in career outcomes by integrating unit-wide strategies to promote equity: recognizing CUNY’s strength as an engine of upward mobility for students from a diversity of backgrounds, deploy unit and CUNY-wide strategies to ensure equitable outcomes for all.
- Help to build a culture of inclusivity and support: as a critical member of the CEWP team, cultivate relationships with other members of the division, contribute to unit-wide projects and initiatives as needed, and attend staff meetings and trainings as required.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- At least five (5) years of experience in economic development, business development, industry engagement, entrepreneurship, or a related field
- Excellent communication and facilitation skills, including an ability to synthesize feedback from many different types of stakeholders into a clear galvanizing message
- Experience with industry partner engagement, data management, and project management
- Ability to think strategically and creatively, problem-solve, and develop programs to achieve organizational goals
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced and complex work environment
- Experience working with a diversity of stakeholders from a variety of sectors (e.g. public, private, across industries) to advance a common mission
- Ability to manage competing priorities and multiple projects
- Commitment to CUNY’s mission of promoting the equitable upward economic mobility of graduates
- Ability to adhere to CUNY’s location and hybrid in-person/remote work policies
Preferred Qualifications
- Demonstrated experience surfacing, documenting, and developing programs, services, and initiatives based on user goals and requirements
- Knowledge of product development best practices, with a preference for business-to-business products or services; track record of building partnerships or products with a revenue generation component preferred
- Previous experience working with NY businesses to assess needs and build cross-sectoral partnerships
- Demonstrated understanding or previous experience navigating the unique strengths and opportunities presented by CUNY campuses, system, and student body
- Proven ability to oversee the development and deployment of complex programs or initiatives across multiple partners or contexts
- Knowledge of best practices for data collection, analysis, and communication in order to mobilize a diversity of stakeholders towards a common goal
- Demonstrated ability to understand motivation and incentives of diverse audiences and craft effective messages and marketing material to mobilize action
- Previous experience navigating complex public systems – successful candidates will be energized by the concept of creating long lasting change by addressing systemic barriers to innovation and partnership
- Demonstrated team-player mentality, willing to roll up sleeves and assist with all-hands-on-deck efforts as needed
- Commitment to inclusive approaches to partnership development, including respect for, sensitivity to, and encouragement of diverse perspectives
- Clear commitment to continuous learning – including demonstrated interest in latest higher education/career development research, familiarity with other promising emerging practices from across NYC workforce ecosystem, or participation in professional networks, activities, or independent learning opportunities
Physical Requirements
- Ability to travel to multiple sites throughout NYC
RFCUNY Benefits
RFCUNY Employee Benefits and AccrualsAbout the Research Foundation
The Research Foundation of The City University of New York (RFCUNY) was established as a not-for-profit educational corporation chartered by the State of New York in 1963. RFCUNY supports CUNY faculty and staff in identifying and obtaining external support (pre-award) from government and private sponsors and is responsible for the administration of all such funded programs (post-award).
RFCUNY stands between CUNY’s principal investigators (PIs) and the sponsors who support them and strives to fulfill its essential responsibilities to both groups. Working closely with individual PIs and Grants Officers on the campuses, RFCUNY oversees employment, accounting, audit, reporting, purchasing, and special responsibilities that include management of a planned giving program; liaison with governmental agencies and foundations; negotiation of agreements; facility construction and renovation; protection and commercialization of intellectual property; and compliance with applicable standards in research involving human subjects, animal care, environmental and radiological safety, and conflicts of interest.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Key Features
Office of Careers & Industry Partnership
Full Time
$90,000.00 - $95,000.00
Jul 04, 2023 (Or Until Filled)