Community Engagement Lead

UpLink is the Open Innovation Platform of the World Economic Forum and developed in partnership with Salesforce and Deloitte. UpLink as a digital platform is designed to surface and support innovations and solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges from entrepreneurs, innovators and changemakers, and connect them to the resources, networks and decision-makers needed to scale and maximize their impact.

Who we are

We are a start-up initiative of the Forum, operate with openness to new ideas and heavily relying on the cross-team collaboration. We are a fun and driven group of professionals coming from different walks of life and collectively we are working towards realizing our vision of building a global digital ecosystem for innovation to move the needle for the SDGs.

Role and Responsibilities

UpLink’s Growth and Partnerships work stream is responsible for driving the following main activities:

Innovation Eco-system Building: In order to become a well-recognized and world-class digital innovation ecosystem, building partnerships with other stakeholders is necessary. This includes partnering with complementary organizations, other similar platforms, NGOs, accelerators, impact investors, VCs, experts and innovators.

Partner Engagement: This workflow involves the on-boarding and maintenance of relationships with funders and supporting partners to ensure value delivery to key UpLink partners and retention of funders for future activities and their referral for others.

Fundraising: To build a digital ecosystem for innovation, UpLink has brought together different actors together through running the innovation challenges. The G&P work stream is responsible to fundraise for the development of the platform as well as running the innovation challenges.

The key functions of the role will be as follows:

Innovation Eco-system Building:

Innovation ecosystem mapping, pipeline building and active outreach and formalizing collaborations with the identified stakeholders

Develop a pipeline and network of mission-aligned external organizations, with resources to support either financially or otherwise, committed to supporting existing or new UpLink Topics or Challenges

Support the Topic & Curation team with the design and programming of key activities on UpLink platform by nominating experts, investors, incubators, or organizations to get involved with the programming for UpLink cohorts (i.e. investor and expert roundtables, virtual sessions, etc.)

Partner engagement:

Lead relationships and engagement with Impact Partners, respond to partner requests and serve as the primary touchpoint for partners with Topic and Activity Curation team

Facilitate on-platform introductions and meaningful collaboration opportunities for respective UpLink cohorts with Impact Partners and Forum platforms, communities, and networks

Fundraising:

This requires an increase in UpLink brand awareness and to provide exposure for UpLink’s impact to drive fundraising. This would include both internal and external activities, campaigns, and outreach

Lead the development of a Partnerships strategy for UpLink, including designing a sustainable partnership model and corresponding value proposition

Develop and lead processes for scoping and onboarding new partners, including:

Developing relevant collateral and onboarding documentation

Conducting due diligence process to ensure mission alignment

Preferred Requirements & Experience:

An entrepreneurial candidate is sought with experience in the financial sector with a strong impact mindset:

Experienced relationship management professional with business development experience and strong communication and presentation skills

Experience with start-ups, impact investors and entrepreneurship eco-system and plus

Strong collaboration and project management skills (both internal and external)

Execute effectively in a cross-functional team setting and work in collaboration with senior leadership (internal and external)

Motivated self-starter who is comfortable navigating ambiguity and displaying a proactive approach to problem-solving

Able to juggle competing priorities and meet deadlines under pressure

In addition, we are looking for a mission driven, ambitious and team player to join a young and fun (start-up like) initiative of the Forum.

Why work at the Forum:

The Forum believes that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to improve the state of the world by building awareness and cooperation, shaping mindsets and agendas, and driving collective action. Join us and become a driver for positive change!