Impact Entrepreneur in Residence - Chief Designer

Salary Competitive
Equity To be negotiated

Coventures is a platform for entrepreneurship! We're a community for entrepreneurs who want to collaborate in learning and development, leveraging corporate assets for more impactful projects, and in incubating impact startups. We seek exceptionally talented entrepreneurs who are skilled in both practice and theory. An entrepreneurial "get-things-done" drive combined with management consulting analysis skills.


We launched Coventures to realize the true potential of entrepreneurship by building truly meaningful ventures together! Meaningful problems like climate change require collaboration between forward-thinking corporations and skilled entrepreneurs. We are building the playbook for this collaboration, so entrepreneurship can be applied to meaningful problems for achieving a hundredfold impact.

We see a shortage of skilled entrepreneurs solving problems with a global positive impact. Truly meaningful problems are complex, require valuable assets, and deep domain knowledge. In short: solving them requires co-operation between two very different worlds where no bridge currently exists.

 

Coventures is building that bridge — a platform to bring together entrepreneurs and innovative companies to solve problems that are truly worth solving.

 

  • We are building an agency of co-founders and entrepreneurs (instead of consultants, designers or developers)

  • We focus on achieving tangible measurable business (instead of not so tangible "transformation", "brand benefits", ”design sprints”)

  • We have a network delivery model, where we can handpick required technical talent from our partner network to best fit the venture needs. This means we're 100% objective advisors for the client.

We are looking for actual entrepreneurs, who want to build their own consulting business together with us. We operate on a simple revenue share basis, where we help you build your own business with our platform and collaborate on building more impact. And when you're ready to start your next venture, we have a strong value proposition for incubating that together with us.


The career path with Coventures is usually two-fold:

  1. Help our corporate and startup clients build new impact business (consulting) & help us build the platform

    • Build our collaborative asset-base (client relationships, partnerships)

    • Build the playbook (learn more, understand what you know and what you don't, systematize your learning for becoming more effective)

    • Build your own personal assets. If you're good, our model allows you quite easily to earn a very high income level.

  2. When you feel like it, incubate your own business ideally utilizing the collaborative assets we've built up. For this, we can provide funding, partnerships, corporate partnerships, leverage public-funding, co-founders, tech-stack, etc. - and we basically just invest in your FFF-round without taking any extra equity.

What we can offer you:

  • A community of A-class peers to learn with and help you in every challenge you might have. All this translates to more value for your clients or venture.

  • Sell your services through a trusted brand (Coventures) with existing references, client testimonials, marketing value, etc.

  • We take care of all the legal, information security & back-office requirements of your business (finance, accounting, billing, gdpr, contracts, etc.)

  • You'll have a ready-to-use sales/marketing machine to reach your clients. We'll help you very hands-on in reaching out and do all sales together.

  • We have already built a successful offering, which can be sold to clients, so you can get up-to-speed with selling those before building your own offering.

  • You'll get access to the ever-growing Coventures toolbox and knowledge base.

  • All our existing client relationships and network (including advisors and delivery partners will be at your disposal)

  • You'll get access to certain valuable partnerships that allow for example using public-funding that might e.g. finance 75% of client costs (e.g. ELY-keskus, Innovaatioseteli)

  • We can build superb tech-stack and partnerships for you to leverage in customer projects.

  • Possibility to become an owner in Coventures platform.

In general, we look for exceptional, senior talent with experience in the following overlapping domains:

  • Entrepreneurship (especially early stage)

  • Product Management (focused on ventures)

  • Venture Design or Business Design (focused on new venture development)

  • Corporate Innovation (focused on venturing and innovation strategy)

  • Management Consulting (focused on new venture development)

In this EiR: Chief Designer position our initial idea is to find:

  • An actual Entrepreneur excited to build their own business within the Coventures platform!

  • Everything we do has a touch-point for design. It's clear having an in-house designer could be super valuable.

  • For this position, we need someone who already is senior enough for being able to do very independent client work.

The ideal Entrepreneur for this design-focused role:

  • Identifies as an entrepreneur and has a passion for building ventures, creating impact, and is a life-long learner in the school of entrepreneurship.

  • Has been in the founding team of ventures in the past and is an entrepreneur by heart.

  • Is a super rare full-stack designer, who understands deeply all areas in design.

    • Is exceptionally visually talented. Can produce beautiful things be it web, mobile, print or whatever medium.

    • Understands business and strategy at a very high-level. Is able to visualize complex things and experience in driving common understanding with a systematic process.

    • Understand how to craft a strategic narrative.

    • Understands Brand Design and Design Systems.

    • Very skilled in UX -design and growth strategy (can e.g. easily lead growth workshops, etc.)

    • Is technical and entrepreneurial enough that turning ideas into reality is never a challenge.

    • Also very skilled in customer empathy, service design, interview methodologies, etc.

  • Native-level English is mandatory. In case you're selling to Finnish clients, it seems to be a big plus in case you speak Finnish as well.

To be honest, we don't think we will find a suitable person for this role in the near future. The bar here is set very, very high. As we don't have an offering ready we need a definite self-starter here and we can't support you so much in sales as with other open roles.

How to apply:

Because we receive many applications where some might not actually meet the criteria, we kindly ask you to read our instructions and requirements.

In your short text:

  1. Your Entrepreneur experience: Let us know clearly which ventures you've co-founded (had equity and C-level role in) - we expect a minimum of 2 years of venture co-founder level experience.

  2. Your Design experience: Explain clearly how you've gained the extensive depth of design experience required.

  3. Would be great if the text itself is a statement of your copywriting and creative skills.

In your portfolio:

  • Wow us and make sure the portfolio depicts your visual talent.

We'll definitely contact each application we deem to fit the requirements above. We'll try our best to reach our also to applications that don't fit the criteria, but it might take a while. Please be patient.


In case you're interested in joining Coventures, but the requirements of this position are not yet met, then we'd advise you to fill in our open application.

Perks and benefits

This job comes with several perks and benefits

Flexible working hours
Flexible working hours

Time is precious. Make it count. Morning person or night owl, this job is for you.

Free coffee / tea
Free coffee / tea

Get your caffeine fix to get you started and keep you going.

Near public transit
Near public transit

Easy access and treehugger friendly workplace.

Social gatherings
Social gatherings

Social gatherings and games; hang out with your colleagues.

Free office snacks
Free office snacks

Peckish after lunch? We got your back with soft drinks, treats and fruit.

Equity package
Equity package

Want to be a partner? Look no further.

See all 12 benefits

Working at
Coventures

Coventures is a Venture Builder. We are developing a more scalable and purposeful vehicle for entrepreneurship. A playbook for building ventures. A more direct way for skilled entrepreneurs to do impact. Together. At Coventures, we are entrepreneurs, strategists, innovators, product managers and builders at heart. We love thinking big and discussing strategy, innovation and impact . However, we believe actions speak louder than words and we love to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty to get the job done. Being part of Coventures means you are very ambitious, share our vision and enjoy constantly learning new things. You should be a rare breed of strategic thinker combined with excellent execution skills. We are based in Helsinki, Finland. With a very global mindset and ambition.

Read more about Coventures

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