Partner - Venture Development, Studio Program Director

Compensation

Equity only at studio level, founding team role, meaningful long term upside

Location

UK or US, remote first, with potential relocation to UAE or KSA as the studio scales

About Rookridge Ventures

Rookridge Ventures is a venture studio that builds and scales companies from zero using a lean, execution driven model inspired by Rocket Internet and Atomic. We do not run cohorts or accelerators. We build real businesses with founders in residence, centralised technology, and a small senior operating team.

We are deliberately lean. Each core role replaces what would traditionally be multiple teams. This role sits at the heart of the studio.

The Role

As Program Director, Studio Operations, you are the execution backbone of the studio. Your primary mandate is to track venture progress rigorously and make each venture investment ready within a defined timeline.

You work directly with the Managing Partner and Entrepreneurs in Residence to ensure ventures hit the right milestones for fundraising, weak ideas are shut down early, and strong ventures are packaged clearly for investors.

This is not a programme management or events role. It is a senior operator role focused on execution, fundraising readiness, and leverage across multiple ventures in parallel.

What You Will Own

Own venture level progress tracking against agreed milestones and timelines

Ensure each active venture becomes investment ready for pre seed or seed fundraising

Support Entrepreneurs in Residence with structure, prioritisation, and decision making

Define and enforce fundraising readiness criteria, deck quality, metrics, and narratives

Maintain and evolve the studio playbook, operating cadence, and execution standards

Own venture timelines, weekly operating rhythm, and delivery discipline

Track KPIs, assumptions, and traction in a clear investor friendly format

Act as the connective tissue between founders, tech, growth, and research

Identify bottlenecks early and unblock teams quickly

Enforce capital efficiency, accountability, and pace

What You Will Not Do

Build bloated reporting or unnecessary bureaucracy

Manage layers of junior project managers

This role exists to move ventures to fundable outcomes, not to create process for its own sake.

Ideal Background

5 to 10 years experience in startups, venture studios, consulting, product operations, or high growth environments

Hands on experience preparing startups for fundraising, including milestones, metrics, and investor narratives

Strong understanding of pre seed and seed fundraising dynamics, investor expectations, and timelines

Proven ability to run multiple initiatives in parallel with limited resources

Strong judgement and comfort making decisions with incomplete information

Experience working directly with founders and investors

Clear communicator who can translate execution into investor ready stories

Operator mindset with a bias towards outcomes and capital efficiency

Experience in venture studios, founder led companies, or fundraising environments is a strong plus.

Mindset Fit

Comfortable with ambiguity and zero to one environments

Motivated by ownership and long term equity value rather than salary

Hands on, pragmatic, and execution focused

Sees fundraising readiness as a discipline, not an event

Views structure as a tool for speed, not control

You may be a successful founder or early operator who has built before and now wants to help other founders build and raise better

Why This Role Matters

This role determines whether ventures raise or stall. You act as the internal owner of progress and fundraising readiness, ensuring founders build companies that investors can clearly back.

If this resonates, we would like to speak.

Seniority level

Director

Employment type

Full-time

Job function

Marketing, Public Relations, and Writing / Editing

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