Incubation, Acceleration and Business Development Lead at WootLab

Role Purpose

• The Incubation, Acceleration and Business Development Lead designs and delivers the programme's incubation and acceleration pathway, the stage that follows foundational and developmental training and is intended to convert promising beneficiaries into supported, investment-ready or revenue-generating ventures. The role owns the design of hackathons, pitch sessions and innovation challenges, alongside the broader business development curriculum and startup support framework.
• This is a standalone role, kept separate from research commercialisation and IP advisory, which is treated as a distinct function. The Lead's focus is on incubation delivery, business development skill-building and startup support not intellectual property strategy or research-to-market transition, which require a different specialism.

Key Responsibilities

Incubation and Acceleration Design

• Design the programme's incubation and acceleration pathway, building on the Foundational and Developmental training tracks led by the Training and Capacity Development Lead.
• Define eligibility and progression criteria for beneficiaries moving from training into incubation and acceleration support.
• Design cohort structures, milestones and support touchpoints for incubated and accelerated ventures across the 10 Centres of Excellence.

Business Development Training

• Design and deliver business development training content covering venture planning, market validation, financial literacy, and growth strategy for early-stage entrepreneurs.
• Ensure business development content is tailored to the digital and creative-sector focus areas relevant to the programme's beneficiary categories.

Hackathons, Pitch Sessions and Innovation Challenges

• Design and run hackathons, pitch sessions and innovation challenges as flagship engagement and selection mechanisms within the incubation pathway.
• Coordinate logistics, judging criteria and mentor/judge involvement for these events, working with State-Level Coordinators on local delivery.

Startup Support and Commercialisation Pathways

• Provide ongoing startup support to incubated ventures, including mentorship coordination, basic venture-building guidance and access to relevant programme resources.
• Design commercialisation pathways that help supported startups move toward sustainable revenue generation or investment readiness.
• Track the progress of incubated and accelerated ventures, feeding outcome data to the M&E Specialist for quarterly reporting.

Person Specification Required

• Candidates must possess at least a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university; additional qualifications or relevant certifications will be an added advantage
• Demonstrated experience designing or delivering incubation or acceleration programmes for early-stage entrepreneurs or startups.
• Experience designing and running hackathons, pitch sessions or innovation challenges at scale.
• Strong business development training background, with the ability to teach venture planning, market validation and growth strategy to non-specialist founders.
• Experience providing direct startup support or mentorship coordination for early-stage ventures.
• Comfort working across multiple institutions and states, given the distributed nature of programme delivery.

Preferred

• Prior experience with donor-funded or accelerator-style programmes
• Background in digital or creative-sector entrepreneurship specifically, given the programme's sector focus.
• Existing networks of mentors, judges or investors who could support hackathons, pitch sessions or venture progression.
• Familiarity with commercialisation or investment-readiness frameworks for early-stage ventures.