New Job Executive Director, Usc Stevens Center For Innovation In California

THE OPPORTUNITY

Position: Executive Director, USC Stevens Center for Innovation

Location: Los Angeles, California

Reporting Relationship: Associate Vice President of Research Strategy & Innovation

Website: https://stevens.usc.edu/

The Stevens Center for Innovation at the University of Southern California is seeking an Executive Director to join its team. The Executive Director is responsible for increasing, improving, and accelerating the commercialization of USC-driven intellectual property, with the intent of affecting a positive financial impact through license income, patents, royalties, contract research, and joint ventures. The Executive Director will expand the university’s capacity to elevate innovative and entrepreneurial activities and accelerate discovery at the intersection of academic research, innovation, and commercialization.

THE STEVENS CENTER FOR INNOVATION

The USC Stevens Center for Innovation is the technology transfer licensing office for USC and serves as a university-wide resource for innovators and entrepreneurs. The Stevens Center is designed to harness and advance creative thinking and breakthrough research at USC to translate it for societal impact. As a part of USC Research & Innovation, The Stevens Center supports translational research and research administration, processes of intellectual property management, patents, licensing, startup formation, entrepreneurship education, and material and data transfers. The Stevens Center also ensures compliance with Federal law (Bayh-Dole Act), state, foundation, and corporate funded sponsored research reporting requirements, as well as obligations to assure continued funding from these sources. For more information about the Stevens Center, please visit our website at https://stevens.usc.edu/.

MISSION

To maximize the translation of USC research into products for public benefit through licenses, collaborations, and the promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation. The Stevens Center serves as a university-wide resource that works to move the discoveries of USC researchers from the lab to the marketplace. The Center manages a broad portfolio of university-owned intellectual property stemming from over one billion dollars in annual research expenditures.

THE POSITION

Reporting to the Associate Vice President of Research Strategy & Innovation, the Executive Director will have the duties and responsibilities outlined below:

Strategic

• Work in partnership with other Research & Innovation units to integrate USC Stevens in a USC innovation ecosystem designed to integrate and streamline service and strategic vision across the research development pipeline
• Assess the current patent portfolio of the University and develop a management strategy for underexploited intellectual property and a strategy for future patent prosecution
• Work with Research & Innovation leadership to seamlessly coordinate and integrate technology transfer activities with the activities of incubators and other new ventures

Operational

• Manage the licensing, startup, and entrepreneurial functions of the Stevens Center and serve as a liaison between the office and the business and research community
• Identify commercialization partners and assist in crafting, negotiating, and securing license agreements and manage ongoing active licenses
• Advise on, and contribute to, development of University policies that include intellectual property considerations
• Craft and contribute to template agreements and terms for sponsored research agreements, confidentiality agreements, material transfer agreements and other agreements with outside parties that involve intellectual property provisions
• Administer completed contracts including management of financial terms, compliance, invoicing, monitoring of milestones, termination and renegotiation issues
• Support translational research through obtaining proof-of-principle funding and small business innovation research funding and small business technology transfer research funding
• Ensure compliance with government regulations and with obligations to research sponsors and other partners
• Establish and track metrics that illustrate USC’s support and successes in technology transfer and commercialization

Communications and Ecosystem Building

• Develop and maintain relationships with external public- and private-sector entities including federal and state agencies, national research centers, foundations, business, and industry
• Attend and represent the university at national meetings concerning technology transfer, commercialization, licensing, and intellectual property
• Provide input representing the university on proposed regulations and monitor national trends in research, benchmark peer institutions’ interpretation of regulations and methods of meeting similar obligations

Outreach, Training, and Consultation

• Provide education and deliver training to faculty, staff, and students on intellectual property and technology transfer matters
• Develop and implement an individual consultation/advising service for faculty and staff
• Lead outreach efforts to faculty, staff, students and others to identify and market opportunities
• Advise other units on intellectual property matters
• Support and participate in entrepreneurship activities on campus

QUALIFICATIONS

The next Executive Director will have a passion for the mission of the USC Stevens Center and deep experience leading tech transfer efforts at a similarly complex R1 institution or equivalent. The Executive Director will lead with a customer service and collegial mindset while forming deep partnerships and relationships with all necessary university stakeholders in order to drive achievement in tech transfer. Other necessary qualifications include:

• Hands-on experience with market assessment, regulatory review and commercial risk assessment for academic IP.
• Track record of effective leadership as well as the ability to effectively engage with innovators, companies, and investors
• Experience managing an organization and team of similar size and scope with a desire to create unified protocols and procedures
• Entrepreneurial in spirit and energized by challenges and creative approaches to problem solving
• Deep understanding of investigative research and commercialization process from all perspectives with a passion for the Stevens Center mission

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• MBA, JD, PhD, or equivalent experience
• Minimum 10 years of relevant experience in the management and marketing of intellectual property, with broad expertise in academic technology transfer and a network that enables marketing and licensing of IP to established and startup companies

COMPENSATION

Compensation arrangements are competitive and commensurate with both experience and achievement.

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

The University of Southern California is one of the world’s leading private research universities. An anchor institution in Los Angeles, a global center for arts, technology and international business, USC’s diverse curricular offerings provide extensive opportunities for interdisciplinary study and collaboration with leading researchers in highly advanced learning environments.

USC is ranked 42 on the National Academy of Inventors’ (NAI) 2022 annual list of the Top 100 Worldwide University U.S. Utility Patent holders. In its comprehensive 2022 ranking, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education ranked USC 19th among more than 1,000 public and private universities. Among all California institutions — public and private — only USC, Caltech and Stanford University ranked within the top 20. Of the 150 universities surveyed in the western U.S., USC ranks No. 3 overall. Among the top 25 schools, USC ranked No. 4 in engagement, which measures student sentiment on how their education prepares them for the real world.

This year, USC received more than 69,000 applicants for its fall freshman class, with an acceptance rate of 12 percent. The number of students who are the first in their families to attend USC has been growing steadily for five years — 22 percent of the incoming class are first-generation college students. With one of the most abundant financial aid pools in the country, USC provides more than $640 million in scholarships and aid. Students from families earning $80,000 or less each year attend tuition-free under a new USC initiative to make college more affordable for lower and middle-income families.

USC’s distinguished faculty of 4,000 innovative scholars, researchers, teachers and mentors includes five Nobel laureates, and dozens of recipients of prestigious national honors including the MacArthur “Genius” Award, Guggenheim Award, the National Medal of the Arts, the National Humanities Medal, the National Medal of Science, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and Pulitzer Prize.

HOW TO APPLY

Applications should include a detailed curriculum vitae and a letter of interest highlighting the applicant’s personal interest and relevant leadership experience. To ensure full consideration, inquiries, nominations, and applications should be submitted electronically in confidence by Monday, May 29, 2023 to Ms. Lori Hemmer at [email protected].

The annual base salary range for this position is $265,275.65 – $330,143.28. When extending an offer of employment, the University of Southern California considers factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate’s work experience, education/training, key skills, internal peer equity, federal, state, and local laws, contractual stipulations, grant funding, as well as external market and organizational considerations.

Candidates must be U.S. Citizens or Permanent Resident and residing in the United States. Those currently employed full-time by college or university admission offices or who have children applying to USC as first-year or transfer students in the current admission cycle are not eligible.