Tech Nation Programme Manager - Scaleups

About Founders Forum & Tech Nation

Founders Forum Group is an event-powered community and family of businesses supporting innovative entrepreneurs at every stage of their journeys. Founded in 2005, our invite-only forums unite founders, investors, corporate and government leaders to tackle era-defining questions in iconic locations across the globe.

Since 2019, Founders Forum has partnered with Informa Tech to celebrate the strength and diversity of UK tech through London Tech Week.

Fuelled by the connections and ideas forged at our flagship events, Founders Forum businesses support the needs of today’s founders via networking, education, professional services, investment and charitable giving.

In 2023, Founders Forum acquired Tech Nation to further our mission to empower tech entrepreneurs and scale innovative startups.

Tech Nation is the leading platform for tech insights, connections, collaboration and talent, empowering ambitious founders and their teams with the access and knowledge they need from seed stage to success story.

Under the FFG umbrella, Tech Nation has relaunched our first set of initiatives and reports as part of the new Tech Nation. We are now in a growth phase and are looking for a new Programme Manager to oversee Upscale and additional scaleup initiatives - this is where you come in!

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Programme Manager to manage Tech Nation’s Upscale programme and bespoke scaleup initiatives.

Upscale is Tech Nation’s flagship scaleup programme, backed by fantastic founders and partners, offering brilliant exposure to the UK’s most ambitious Series A growth-stage companies.

Given strong founder interest and demand, we are also evaluating expanding our programme. This will include wider scaleup initiatives, including our scaleup padel event, our alumni offering and potential event, and international expansion opportunities for our community of founders.

As our Programme Manager, you will be responsible for planning and delivering these programmes, with the strategic and commercial oversight of the Future Fifty Programme Lead, our network for Series B+ founders. You will identify and build a strong, relevant network rallied around these initiatives, and engage strategic and commercial partners as well as later stage speakers. The result will be delivering a calendar of events and advisory support for selected companies, alongside strengthening our scaleup and alumni network with strong engagement.

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of Tech Nation’s next journey of growth, shaping how we support UK’s scaleup founders.

Responsibilities

Programme research, ideation, & content curation:

• Input and iterate the strategy for Upscale and our bespoke scaleup initiatives, working with the Future Fifty Programme Lead and wider team, ensuring it is truly valuable to the community and the tech ecosystem.
• Keep yourself informed and at the forefront of what scaleup founders need to grow - be amongst the first to know, and develop ideas to iterate your initiatives accordingly. You will become a specialist in the scaleup and growth stage investing journey.
• Research and identify thought leaders, programme advisors, investors and value adding speakers to integrate into the offering, as well as coordinating invitations and shaping agendas to create value adding events.
• Ideate new formats to bring to events and programmes, including our Padel event and alumni forum.

Programme & event delivery:

• Ensure we deliver an incredible experience for all companies on Upscale and our bespoke initiatives, that is impact driven and scalable.
• Organise a series of growth and investor based events, educational, advisory sessions and introductions ensuring the programme delivers long term impact.
• Work with the founders on a day to day basis to get their feedback and shape the support we can provide.
• Own the content and plan for our flagship scaleup events, including the Padel event and alumni forum, uniting programme stakeholders, alumni, investors and Founders Forum community members.
• Work with investors and relevant stakeholders to support fundraising and drive impact.
• Implement a clear selection process for the programme.
• Collaborate with our partnerships lead to maintain communication with partners of the programme and scope out opportunities for scaleups initiatives
• Deliver new bespoke partner events relating to the scaleup community.
• At tim…