Senior Manager/assistant Vice President, New Ventures

[What the role is]

About EDB
The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a government agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, is responsible for strategies that enhance Singapore’s position as a global centre for business, innovation, and talent. We undertake investment promotion and industry development, and work with international businesses, both foreign and local, by providing information, connection to partners and access to government incentives for their investments. Our mission is to create sustainable economic growth, with vibrant business and good job opportunities for Singapore.

About the New Ventures Division
EDB New Ventures is the venture building arm of EDB. Our aim is to support the creation and scaling of high potential new ventures from Singapore to become globally leading businesses. To do so, we are spearheading novel ways of partnering companies for their corporate venturing journeys and established global founders as they build their next ventures from Singapore. This includes embarking on joint venture building sprints alongside partner corporates / global founders, co-investment with corporates to risk-share early-stage growth of their ventures and active portfolio value creation support to scale each venture. In actively working with companies on corporate venturing - we embark on joint venture building sprints alongside strategic corporate partners, co-investing with them to risk-share early-stage growth of their ventures and active portfolio value creation to scale each venture.

We are looking for experienced individual(s) in the venture ecosystem with strong interest in China as a geography and AI as a domain focus, to join us at Senior Manager/ Assistant Vice President seniority level to drive more creation of new ventures by global founders in Singapore. Join our fast-growing and dynamic team

[What you will be working on]

Founder Engagement (China and AI)

This role is to attract top experienced founders to Singapore and support high potential ventures created by these founders in Singapore to grow to become globally leading businesses. Experienced founders range from those who have been in leadership positions in unicorns / tech companies, to those who are technically strong in deep tech domains. We aim to support their move to Singapore and build new ventures.

The China and AI team’s dual specialization are as follows:

- China: Attracting experienced founders and early-stage ventures from China to Singapore, across all industry segments
- AI (Global): Attracting AI founders with technical expertise to venture build in Singapore

This team is one of five teams within New Ventures and will work closely with the rest of the division and other parts of EDB.

[What we are looking for]

At the Senior Manager level, key responsibilities for the role includes:

- Relationship Management of founders to facilitate their move and setup in Singapore
- Value creation for high potential ventures, such as in supporting partnerships, GTM efforts including matchmaking with large corporates to undertake innovative pilots and other needs of the business that EDB can provide assistance for
- Strategy development in the team’s dual specialization areas, including identifying gaps and experimenting with / developing offerings to address key gaps

At the Assistant Vice President level, additional key responsibilities include:

- Ownership and accountability of overall team strategy, objectives, process and outcomes, including organising team members to work together effectively
- Managing a team of 3 Relationship Managers and 1 support officer, including career development and performance management
- Leading collaborations with other teams in EDB on sourcing and founder engagement, as well as product / process development

To meet the challenges of this role at the Senior Manager level, you must have:

- A strong interest and passion in start-up or venture creation
- Demonstrated interest / experience in China’s innovation economy and in AI developments globally are required
- A Bachelor’s Degree in any discipline with relevant working experience
- Strong analytical ability that can be applied in research of opportunity areas, distillation of qualitative and quantitative data into insights, development and assessment of business models etc
- High proficiency in Chinese language in business settings
- Possess the following skill sets and attributes:

- Proactive, energetic and curious
- Positive, can-do attitude
- Adaptable, receptive to uncertainty and change
- Confident with high level of resourcefulness to drive new initiatives and projects
- Results-oriented
- Strong organisational, time management and multi-tasking skills
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Independent but a strong team player
- Singaporean

Additional requirements at the Assistant Vice President level include:

- 8-10 years of relevant work experience, including team lead roles
- Ability