Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship

Job Title

Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship

Agency

Texas A&M University

Department

Associate Provost Academic Enhancement

Proposed Minimum Salary

Commensurate

Job Location

College Station, Texas

Job Type

Staff

Job Description

Overview

Texas A&M University seeks a bold, collaborative, and visionary leader to serve as its inaugural Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship. This strategic role will unify and elevate entrepreneurial activity across campus, strengthening interdisciplinary partnerships, broadening student and faculty engagement, and positioning Texas A&M as a national leader in innovation and entrepreneurial impact. The successful candidate will embody Aggie values, lead with purpose, and inspire the next generation of innovators and changemakers.

Entrepreneurship at Texas A&M spans student academic programs and startups, faculty-led research commercialization, social innovation, intrapreneurship, and creative ventures. Grounded in impact, resilience, and problem-solving, the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is poised for accelerated growth. This leader will drive that momentum by embedding entrepreneurship across the academic experience, expanding access to innovation opportunities and external networking for all disciplines, and cultivating a culture of creativity and collaboration.

The Associate Vice President will oversee and work in close partnership with the McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship—an established leader in student and alumni programming—as well as other key units across campus. Rather than duplicating existing efforts, this role will align and amplify entrepreneurship programs, fostering synergies across the university. This will include building bridges and amplify efforts without duplicating or replacing existing strengths. The ideal candidate is a proven entrepreneur with a history of launching and exiting successful ventures, and someone who embodies a passion for cultivating the next generation of innovators and changemakers.

Why Texas A&M?

With over 80,000 students, Texas A&M is uniquely positioned to become a national leader in innovation and entrepreneurship. The Texas Triangle—encompassing Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas-Fort Worth—represents one of the fastest-growing innovation corridors in the country, offering unmatched access to capital, talent, and corporate partnerships.

The McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship: A Foundation for Innovation

"The McFerrin Center is the cornerstone of entrepreneurship at Texas A&M, it provides hands-on experiences, mentorship, and lifelong entrepreneurial support. These initiatives foster the entrepreneurial mindset necessary to identify opportunities, cultivate ideas, and bring innovations to the market. Programs include:"

• Aggie Pitch

• Ideas Challenge

• Entrepreneurs Exposed speaker series

• Student Founders Night

• McFerrin Mashup

• Startup 101

• McFerrin on Tour

• Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans

• Aggie Angel Network

The Associate Vice President will oversee, scale, and unify McFerrin’s programming across colleges and disciplines while creating new partnerships that support startup formation and commercialization efforts throughout the Texas Triangle and beyond.

Integrating McFerrin Principles into Campus-Wide Strategy

The Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship will be responsible for ensuring that core values and core operating principles are integrated into entrepreneurial efforts across Texas A&M. These principles include but are not limited to:

• Learning-by-doing through immersive, hands-on experiences.

• Fostering a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving and innovation.

• Prioritizing mentorship from faculty, alumni, and industry professionals.

• Supporting a full lifecycle of entrepreneurship—from idea to exit.

• Supporting engagement among students, faculty, and alumni across all majors and fields.  

• Supporting entrepreneurship as a lifelong learning process.

• Promoting character development, leadership, and grit alongside technical skills.

• Creating ‘collisions’ through co-working spaces, demo days, and networking opportunities.

• Providing a statewide and lifelong support network through events and partnerships.

The incoming AVP will not only scale these values across Texas A&M’s colleges and schools but will also work to establish Texas A&M as a leading institution in entrepreneurship education and innovation.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Establish and articulate a bold, unifying vision for entrepreneurship and innovation at Texas A&M that aligns with the university’s land-grant mission and strategic goals.

• Pursue strategic growth through accelerator programs, makerspaces, curriculum, and industry collaborations.

• Elevate Texas A&M to national prominence in entrepreneurship education and venture creation by benchmarking top-tier institutions, integrating best practices, and forging industry-leading initiatives.

Ecosystem Building

• Cultivate deep collaborations across academic colleges, research centers, and administrative units to integrate entrepreneurship into curricula and co-curricular activities.

• Build strong bridges between students, faculty, industry leaders, alumni, and investors to create a thriving entrepreneurial community.

• Partner with the Texas A&M Foundation and Division of Marketing & Communications to enhance storytelling, fundraising, and engagement related to innovation.

Program Oversight and Implementation

• Lead the design and scaling of workshops, bootcamps, practicum courses, startup funding opportunities, and mentorship programs.

• Develop operational systems to support curricular and extracurricular programs, including faculty participation, credentialing pathways, and innovation research initiatives.

Administrative and Operational Management

• Manage a cross-functional team, including an administrative support staff and designated directors for accelerator programs, partnerships, and community outreach.

• Oversee facilities, resources, budgeting, and strategic planning for future infrastructure and facilities in close coordination with the Office of the Provost and University Libraries.

• Facilitate intercollege/school communication and governance processes, including innovation councils, entrepreneurship faculty fellows, and student advisory boards.

External Engagement and Advancement

• Act as the lead representative of Texas A&M entrepreneurship in external settings—engaging with venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, corporate partners, and government stakeholders.

• Represent the university at key conferences, panels, alumni events, and investor forums nationwide.

• Collaborate with donors and alumni entrepreneurs to build sustainable financial and mentorship support for Texas A&M startups and innovation initiatives.

Qualifications and Experience

Required:

• Minimum of 10 years in executive leadership, startup development, venture capital, innovation management, or entrepreneurship education.

• Bachelor’s degree.

Preferred:

• Leader from corporate innovation groups, venture arms, or strategy teams.

• Real-world business leadership beyond startups. Someone who brings a proven record of execution in innovation and entrepreneurship settings.

• Demonstrated ability to lead large-scale, cross-functional initiatives with measurable impact.

• Deep understanding of the startup life cycle, from ideation through scaling and exit.

• Deep understanding of the full spectrum of innovation, from startups, intrapreneurship, social ventures, and tech transfer.

• Experience building broad innovation ecosystems that span disciplines, industries, and stakeholder groups.

• At least one successful entrepreneurial venture, including founding and exiting a startup, ideally in a high-growth or innovation-driven sector.

• Individuals with experience launching or scaling programs in complex or decentralized organizations.

• Operators with backgrounds in business development, commercialization, or new product initiatives.

• Executives from accelerators, venture studios, or investment-backed ventures

• Entrepreneurial operator, results-driven, strategic thinker, confident communicator, strong coalition-builder, able to move ideas into action within a large institution.

• Prior experience working in or with either higher education, industry organizations or advisory positions, particularly in entrepreneurship, commercialization, or innovation strategy roles.

• Executive leadership experience in nonprofit, public-private, or academic partnership environments.

• An advanced degree in business, engineering, science, education, or a related field (MBA, JD, MS, PhD, etc.) is a plus.

• Familiarity with accelerator models, university-based incubators, and national entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Entrepreneurial Leadership Qualities
The ideal candidate will embody the following core leadership traits:

• Visionary Thinking: Ability to articulate a clear and compelling vision for entrepreneurship that inspires and mobilizes stakeholders.

• Bridge-Builder: Skilled in cultivating trust and collaboration across academic departments, administrative units, and external constituencies.

• Student-Centered: Passion for mentorship and empowering undergraduate and graduate students to pursue entrepreneurial paths.

• Operational Excellence: Proven success in implementing strategic plans, managing budgets, scaling programs, and leading dynamic teams.

• Network Connector: Strong personal and professional networks in entrepreneurship, venture capital, tech, and innovation ecosystems.

• Storyteller and Evangelist: Excellent communicator who can elevate Texas A&M’s entrepreneurial identity regionally, nationally, and globally.

• Innovative Collaborator: Committed to fostering a culture of excellence that encourages collaboration across disciplines and supports a wide range of startup ideas.

Strategic Objectives & Deliverables

• Coordinate engagement with student organizations and faculty networks

• Develop a university-wide E&I strategic plan within the first year

• Lead McFerrin Center’s cross-college leadership council and advisory group

• Support growth of the entrepreneurship minor and curricular pilots

• Secure external partnerships and fundraising support for proposed infrastructure initiatives

Metrics to Define Success

• Growth in student/faculty participation across disciplines

  • Engage and support students through programming, advising, and organizational partnerships.

  • Provide faculty with opportunities and incentives to co-teach, mentor, and conduct entrepreneurship-related research.

  • Create a central gathering point for entrepreneurial collaboration among all stakeholder groups — students, faculty, staff, alumni, and industry partners.

  • Coordination of academics and programs between and across the colleges and schools.

• Number of startups or ventures supported annually

• External funding secured (philanthropic and/or industry)

• Integration of entrepreneurship courses across “X” colleges

• Expanded alumni and industry mentorship engagement

Why Texas A&M University?   

We are a prestigious university with strong traditions, Core Values, and a community of caring and collaboration.  Amenities associated with a major university, such as sporting and cultural events, state-of-the-art recreation facilities, the Bush Library and Museum, and much more await you.  Experience all that a big city has to offer but with a reasonable cost-of-living and no long commutes.   

• Medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, life and AD&D, flexible spending accounts, and long-term disability insurance with Texas A&M contributing to employee health and basic life premiums 

• 12-15 days of annual paid holidays   

• Up to eight hours of paid sick leave and at least eight hours of paid vacation each month  

• Automatic enrollment in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas 

• Health and Wellness: Free exercise programs and release time  

• Professional Development: All employees have access to free LinkedIn Learning training, webinars, and limited financial support to attend conferences, workshops, and more   

• Educational release time and tuition assistance for completing a degree while a Texas A&M employee  

• Living Well, a program at Texas A&M that has been built by employees, for employees 

Instructions to Applicants: Applications received by Texas A&M University must either have all job application data entered or a resume attached. Failure to provide all job application data or a complete resume could result in an invalid submission and a rejected application. We encourage all applicants to upload a resume’ or use a LinkedIn profile to pre-populate the online application.

All positions are security-sensitive. Applicants are subject to a criminal history investigation, and employment is contingent upon the institution’s verification of credentials and/or other information required by the institution’s procedures, including the completion of the criminal history check.

Equal Opportunity/Veterans/Disability Employer.