EIR Business Venture Coach

Part-Time - Entrepreneur-in-Residence
Approx 6-10 hours per week during the active sprint (6-month engagement) 
$5,000/Month based on experience
 

Apply Today!
 

About the Program

Kairos is an AI-powered digital health venture studio. We pair faculty founders and advisors with Founder Fellows and move their research toward fundable ventures through structured, gated sprints that run from problem validation to Demo Day. Our first sprints in Charlotte are with Atrium Health, and we are hiring a Business Venture Coach to work directly with those teams on the ground.

This is a coaching role for someone who has built things. You will not be lecturing from a slide deck. You will sit with founders through the hardest parts of the early venture arc and advise them through the innovation and business creation process.

Position Summary

The Business Venture Coach works directly with sprint Venture Teams (Founder Fellow, Faculty, and student interns) throughout the full arc of each program sprint, from problem validation through Demo Day. You are responsible for strengthening commercial thinking, coaching founders through complex decisions, and ensuring each team exits every phase with meaningful evidence and a clear path forward.

You will partner closely with a Technical Venture Coach so that the business and technical workstreams stay aligned, and you will sit on the gate review panels that decide whether a venture continues, pivots, or stops. The Technical Venture Coach works directly with Founder Fellows and their faculty partners across the full 6-month sprint to guide technical architecture, AI-native product decisions, and prototype development, ensuring each team translates its solution into a technically sound, buildable product that stands up to investor and customer scrutiny

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the business coach for assigned Founder Fellows across the full 7-month sprint
• Run structured 1:1 coaching sessions focused on commercial strategy, customer discovery quality, positioning, and go-to-market decisions
• Push founders to sharpen their thinking, challenge weak assumptions, and make defensible decisions at each stage
• Model the mindset and behaviors of an effective operator-founder, including bias toward action, intellectual honesty, and stakeholder communication
• Attend and actively contribute to weekly venture team meetings and bi-weekly sprint reviews
• Participate in gate review panels alongside program leadership and contribute to Continue, Pivot, or Kill decisions
• Collaborate with the Technical Venture Coach to ensure business and technical workstreams are aligned
• Draw on direct experience in digital health to contextualize reimbursement dynamics, payer and provider procurement cycles, and health system sales

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Direct operating experience as a founder, early operator, or venture builder, ideally through a 0-to-1 stage in digital health startups where you owned commercial outcomes.
• Working knowledge of digital health economics: reimbursement pathways, payer and provider procurement, and how health systems actually buy.
• A track record of customer discovery and go-to-market work you can speak to in specifics, not frameworks.
• The judgment to run a hard gate review and confidence to support a Kill decision when the evidence calls for it.
• Strong 1:1 coaching instincts. You can challenge a founder without deflating them and know the difference between conviction and stubbornness.
• Clear, direct communication with founders, faculty, and health system stakeholders alike.
• Prior work inside or selling into Atrium Health, Advocate Health, or a comparable health system
• Experience in a venture studio, accelerator, or incubator coaching capacity.
• An existing network in the Charlotte and Carolinas health and startup community.
• Comfort working alongside academic faculty and translating research strengths into commercial positioning.

Commitment & Compensation

• Approximately 6-10 hours per week during the active sprint.
• Business Venture Coach will be engaged as a consultant for the duration of the program sprint. Venture Coaches receive a monthly stipend of $5,000.

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement

The University is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes all to apply without regard to age, color, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. We encourage all qualified applicants to apply, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.