Job Details

Senior Manager, Innovation Lab

Department: Ownership Capital Lab (OCL)

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Remote (U.S.)

Reporting To: Founder & CEO

Compensation: $90,000 - $105,000 / year

Description

Overview

Ownership Capital Lab is seeking a Senior Manager, Innovation Lab to lead core investment and product development work across a small portfolio of EO financing vehicles thatthe Innovation Lab is actively moving from concept to validation, pilot and launch. This role sits at the intersection of investing, product design and market-building, with a strong orientation toward mainstream capital markets.

The Senior Manager will drive strategy and execution across the Innovation Lab's stage-gated process-Assess, Validate, Prototype, Pilot, Launch-anchored in the real-world needs of employee ownership (EO) funds and EO companies. The product development process is centered on identifying and addressing critical barriers to accessing financing, expanding the availability and flexibility of EO capital, and unlocking capital flows that do not reach EO today. The role carries particular responsibility for field-facing needs gathering, investor-facing diligence, financial modeling, fund structuring insights, and partnership development, and requires comfort operating across market-rate private credit, catalytic capital and philanthropic capital-translating between EO field realities and investor expectations.

Reporting to the Founder & CEO, the Senior Manager, Innovation Lab oversees day-to-day advancement of Innovation Lab initiatives, coordinates closely with external partners (fund managers, investors, intermediaries and implementation partners), and ensures that concepts progress with rigor, discipline and market credibility.

This is an ideal role for someone who brings investing experience (private equity, private credit, or similar), has keen end user and market sensibilities and is excited to apply those skills in a highly entrepreneurial environment, and is motivated by the opportunity to help build EO into a mainstream, scalable investing arena.

Time allocation snapshot

• 20%: Portfolio execution & Innovation Lab leadership
  Driving Innovation Lab initiatives through stage gates; coordinating pilots; supporting fundraising materials; managing timelines, partners and internal decision points
• 50%: Market validation & partnership engagement
  Field and investor outreach, diligence conversations, partnership and investor assessment and engagement, and synthesis of investor feedback to inform product design
• 30%: Financial modeling & product design, pilot & launch
  Fund or solution financial modeling, capital stack design, scenario analysis and development of investment materials

Core Responsibilities

1. Lead investment product development across the Innovation Lab

Summary: Advance EO investment concepts from early-stage ideas to market-ready products through a disciplined innovation process, while managing a portfolio of concurrent initiatives with rigor and accountability.

• Lead the innovation pipeline through the Assess, Validate, Prototype, Pilot, Launch pipeline, ensuring clear stage gates, accountability and go/no-go decisions
• Manage the Innovation Lab portfolio, overseeing timelines, workplans, deliverables, contractor and other external resources, and cross-project execution
• Design and pilot investable products, translating EO transaction and fund-level realities into investor-aligned structures
• Coordinate internal, advisor, and external partnerinputs to scope pilots, oversee execution and synthesize learnings
• Surface risks, tradeoffs and recommendations through clear leadership briefings, decision memos, and investor- and funder-facing materials

2. Market validation and investor & partner engagement

Summary:Serve as a market and investor-facing representative of the Innovation Lab, leading market validation and partnership assessment to ensure products are grounded in real investor demand and field realities.

• Lead field and investor outreach, including structured diligence conversations with investors, fund managers, intermediaries, and advisors to test appetite and refine product designs
• Synthesize investor and partner feedback to directly inform product-market fit, fund structuring and capital stack design
• Assess, structure, and support strategic partnerships, from early exploration through pilot and launch
• Generate actionable insights that shape fund design, operating models and go-to-market strategies

3. Financial modeling & fund structuring

Summary: Build and refine financial models that underpin EO investment products or solutions, informing capital stack design, scenario analysis and investor-facing materials.

• Develop fund-level and transaction-level models
• Design and analyze capital stacks, including scenario analysis across risk, return, leverage and catalytic capital dynamics
• Use modeling outputs to inform product design decisions, pricing and structuring tradeoffs
• Support development of investment memos, pitch decks, and fundraising materials (both philanthropic and investment capital) tied to Innovation Lab products

Examples of projects on deck (2026)

The Senior Manager, Innovation Lab will help advance a focused portfolio of high-priority initiatives, including the following, in some cases with support from outside resources:

• Field-wide senior debt solution (pilot): Support validation, pilot execution, and investor engagement for a senior debt product to expand EO financing access, likely in partnership with Calvert Impact.
• Personal guarantee gap solutions (prototypes): Develop and test financing approaches that reduce or replace personal guarantees for EO companies unable to access traditional ESOP bank loans.
• DAF activation strategy: Segment and prioritize DAF holders (over $326B in assets), map leverage points in the DAF ecosystem, and design targeted messaging and activation pathways for DAF corpus investing.
• EO financial data benchmarking (scoping): Complete scoping and advance a shared financial data benchmarking solution to support EO funds and investors.

Qualifications

Required

This role may be a strong fit if you come from private equity, private credit, or a similar investing background or financial services product development, and are interested in applying those skills to employee ownership and market-building.

• 5+ years of experience in investing, private equity, private credit, structured finance or related fields, or financial services product development / management
• Ability to understand market dynamics and user needs-and translate those insights into well-scoped, investable products and solutions
• Ability to evaluate investment opportunities, build and interpret financial models and assess risk-return tradeoffs
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with comfort engaging investors, fund managers and senior partners
• Experience translating complex financial concepts into clear insights and recommendations
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines with consistency and judgment

Preferred

• Experience in impact investing, philanthropy, community development or economic justice
• Familiarity with employee ownership, small business finance or business transitions

How you work

• You are goal-oriented and able to stay focused on and successfully drive towards near-, medium- and long-term milestones
• You are deeply interested in how to creatively apply finance and investing to help employee ownership to scale
• You understand fund structures and capital stacks; experience with LBOs, private debt, or loan funds is a plus
• You are an innovative thinker, always looking for creative approaches to potential roadblocks that others may not consider
• You bring strong people skills and can build trust across diverse stakeholders
• You're excited to work with a small, very agile, remote, fast-moving and sophisticated team

Areas where you shine

• You work independently yet know when to connect about key details and for input, guidance, direction and feedback
• You aren't shy about tracking down information, finding people to answer your questions and reaching out to others for their advice and input
• You sweat the small stuff, and never let a detail fall through the cracks
• You're hungry to learn: You want to dive in deep and really learn and understand employee ownership and employee ownership investing. No prior employee ownership background is required.
• You make things happen. When you say it's taken care of, it is not only done, but done well.

The team is fully remote. This job will be remote, with travel, as needed, for in-person events and gatherings. We are ideally looking for somebody who can work regular business hours in the Pacific or Mountain time zone with ability to sometimes flex the schedule earlier to accommodate Eastern or Central time zones as needed.

TO APPLY:

Application website: To learn more and to apply please select "apply now".

Application materials: We ask you to submit a cover letter, resume, and short writing sample (no more than 5 pages). In your cover letter, please explain what motivates you to work with Ownership Capital Lab, and how your experience, skills and commitment will advance our work to build the Ownership Economy and Ownership Investing. Through the application website, you will also be asked to answer a few short questions.

Application Timeline: Application is rolling, with priority given to applicants who submit by the end of day, Thursday, February 5th, at which point the application may be closed. Ideal start date: April 1, 2026.