Job Description
The Food Labs Manager’s main objective is to ensure member companies’ success and happiness with a strong focus on developing opportunities and experiences for Member growth.
- Launch and maintain an active and engaged Food Labs community, facilitating the growth of each startup
- Manage the Food Labs admissions process to ensure a full roster of promising startups
- Drive growth, promotion, and management of Food Labs programming for the space
- Build sustainable relationships with local facilities, food industry leaders, government, enterprises, partners, and the startup ecosystem.
- Collaborate with the WeWork Labs team and members to identify and execute on opportunities and strategies to continually improve our value proposition
- Help drive strategy around WeWork Food Labs and grow the brand
- Partner with key WeWork corporate functions such as Retail, Real Estate, Finance, IT, Technology, HR, Development, Sales Marketing, Sales, and Communications to grow the WeWork Food Labs community.
Responsibilities
The list of duties and responsibilities is illustrative only, and is not a comprehensive listing of all the duties and responsibilities performed by positions in this class.
- Support larger Food Labs strategy including corporate partnerships, space selection, programming, content, investor relations, facility partnerships, and distribution partnerships.
- Network, research, and create opportunities based on the unique needs of food startups, including exposure to top food industry mentors, vetted facilities and logistics partners, investors and other key people crucial to success
- Manage the Food Labs member pipeline: generate leads, conduct tours, build a pipeline of exciting new food startups to join our program and ensure full occupancy and community participation
- Take responsibility for sales and community dynamics. This includes collaboration with our WeWork Sales team and Community teams.
- Work closely with the WeWork Community, Operations, and Maintenance teams to ensure the highest level of member experience and satisfaction
- Manage day-to-day member needs and works to get to know member companies and develop meaningful relationships to provide them with the best resources and opportunities possible
- Plan, coordinate and run events and ongoing tailored programming, with the ability to assess outcomes, receive feedback, analyze methods and techniques, and participate in the ongoing development of events and programming
- Connect your members to the wider WeWork community, ensuring that knowledge and resources are shared between the various WeWork sub-communities, ultimately “graduating” Food Labs members to offices when their ventures mature
- Help Food Labs members leverage opportunities for visibility, distribution, and feedback through wider WeWork community
- Help build a vetted network of facility and logistics partners that makes operations/manufacturing easier and more accessible for Food Labs members
- Create and manage a Food Labs alumni community, continuing to involve them in mentoring the new generation of startups participating in the program
- Identify, strategize, and act on opportunities to extend WeWork Food Labs’ influence and brand
- Build strong relationships between the business community, local government, and the Labs community
- Manage the P&L, including member growth, occupancy, revenue and margins, managing budget.
Skills & Experience
The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and /or ability required.
Knowledge
- Food industry – from startups, to larger corporations & organizations
- Business incubation and acceleration programs
- Marketing and sales principles
- Working knowledge of industrial-organizational psychology, general management, sales, and marketing
- Familiarity with software engineering principles, revenue management, product-market fit
- Strong understanding of start-up financing and operations (burn rate, funding rounds, organizational scaling)
- Research methods
- Applicable federal, state, and local laws, rules, ordinances, statutes, and regulations
- Public relations principles
- Budget administration principles
- Programming ideation, creation and coordination principles
- Experience desired in any aspect of small business, or personally owning or operating a commercial venture
Experience
- Deep knowledge of the food startup “scene,” and developed connections with influencers in the food startup ecosystem
- Experience in operations, logistics, facility management, project management, event production, sales, and/or customer service from an experience-based environment
- Experience consulting, familiarity with business and product strategy
- BA/BS or equivalent in Business, Marketing, Hospitality, or other related degree
- MBA preferred
- P&L experience required
