The posting
Aalto University Founder School operates as a startup within the university: moving fast, delivering results quickly, iterating, piloting, and pivoting. We enjoy working with people who are excited to make things happen on short notice.
Founder Sprint is our flagship program - a selective, blank-page founder program that bets entirely on the person. We are hiring someone to run it, build the system that lets it scale, and grow toward owning it. This is not a traditional role, you are not just organizing but engineering the system around the program.
This role is a great preparation for future work as a startup founder or in hectic and demanding leadership roles. This position suits someone with a strong interest in high-growth entrepreneurship, community-building, events, and communications in a fast-moving environment.
Job duties may change over time. Teamwork and open communication are a must. This job requires physical presence most workdays. Work and collaboration is done in English. There is a possibility to extend the continuation of this role or grow into leading the program.
The full-time fixed-term Founder Sprint Coordinator runs the daily execution, participant experience, logistics, communications, and operational rhythm of Founder Sprint.
The Coordinator makes sure the program runs smoothly, participants are supported, activities are well-prepared, communication is clear, and the overall cohort experience is strong together with the Founder Sprint Specialist.
This is a growth role. The aim is for the Coordinator to learn Founder Sprint deeply over time and develop toward taking over responsibility for the program in the future.
This role is for someone with high agency, strong execution skills, and ambition to grow. Success in this job can open doors to some of the most attractive entrepreneurial career paths in Finland and beyond.
The Founder Sprint Coordinator will partner with the Founder Sprint Specialist as two co-owners of the program:
- Own the full recruitment funnel for each cohort: attracting applications, sourcing, scoring, interviews, selection, onboarding and building the system that runs it.
- Build the tools that scale the program: application pipelines, scoring systems, AI-assisted ops, internal automations.
- Run the weekly program rhythm: schedules, deadlines, deliverables, workshops, mentor sessions, feedback loops, and make it sharper every cycle.
- Be the face of Founder School in the ecosystem: events, pop-ups, student orgs, partnerships, ambassador work.
- Connect participants to the people, capital, spaces, and next steps that matter, inside and outside Aalto.
- Hold the bar: intensity, quality, ambition, and care across the entire cohort experience.
- Jump into other Founder School work when it counts: Founder Talks, alumni, ecosystem projects, events.
What’s in it for you?
- You get direct access to one of the most ambitious startup hubs in the Nordics.
- You get direct access to exceptional students, founders, investors, mentors, alumni, and startup ecosystem actors.
- You will gain experience in top-tier program operations, founder development, coaching support, ecosystem building, and venture development.
- You get real ownership and responsibility from day one.
- You will develop skills that are highly relevant for future work as a founder, operator, venture builder, startup program lead, or ecosystem builder.
- You will be part of a small, ambitious team with high autonomy building something new. See our current team from here.
Who thrives here? Qualities that make someone exceptional for this role:
- You enjoy networking and thrive when surrounded by people.
- You run many parallel threads – people, deadlines, logistics – without dropping the bar.
- You're comfortable with execution and documentation as much as with strategy.
- You want to learn to build and run a world-class founder program.
- You are passionate about startups and want to help future founders grow.
- You exhibit high agency.
- Familiarity with Aalto’s entrepreneurial ecosystem (a plus, not a must).
- Previous experience in startups, student entrepreneurship, events, communities, or program coordination (is a plus).
- Speaking and writing fluent English (Finnish or Swedish is a plus).
Team culture
We encourage you to read more about our team culture.
How to apply
Apply through Aalto University’s recruitment system by November 25 by sending your
- CV & references
- Assignment (see below)
- Link to portfolio (optional)
- Letter of recommendation or warm intro (a plus)
Please note: Aalto University’s employees and visitors should apply for the position via our internal system Workday.
Hiring Timeline
- Application deadline: November 25, 2026
- Expected start date: January (latest February) 2027
Applications are reviewed and interviews may be held during the application period. This is a fixed-term position until 31 December 2027.
Assignment
If you are interested in this role, make it yours! Make use of your agency, ambition and energy to proactively produce something that allows us to understand who you are.
Please record a short video (maximum 2 minutes) describing how you would build Founder Sprint into a program where the next decacorn founders emerge from. You can also describe your experience with startups, program management, and community building, along with anything else you feel is relevant to this role. Make sure the video can be viewed through the link.
Questions?
If you have any questions about the position, you can contact the hiring manager Kasper Suomalainen at [email protected] or +358 50 400 2139. You can also contact Founder Sprint Specialist Tai Tran at [email protected] or +358 50 447 3312.
More about Aalto University:
Aalto.fi youtube.com/user/aaltouniversity linkedin.com/school/aalto-university/ www.facebook.com/aaltouniversity instagram.com/aaltouniversity
To view information about Workday Accessibility, please click here.
Please see more of our Open Positions here.
