Founding General Manager

ABOUT FRONTIER

We are a non-profit organization built from the ground up to create a new talent pipeline for the workforce of the future. We work at every layer of the talent pipeline simultaneously: research, community, training, and ventures,  because no single intervention is enough on its own. We offer undergraduate and masters degrees and workforce training through micro-credentials and short courses to reshape how America builds talent for the AI age.  Anchoring this training pillar is Frontier Institute of Technology, an affiliated, fully accredited nonprofit university that combines rigorous academics with applied building. It is the credential pathway inside a much larger movement.

FIG is built on the foundation of the African Leadership Group ecosystem — 373,000+ learners trained, 10,000+ ventures launched, 65% job placement within six months. That is 3× the bootcamp benchmark and the most ambitious education-to-employment model operating anywhere in the world. We are bringing that model to the US, city by city.

The infrastructure America needs to build talent for the AI economy doesn't exist yet. Frontier is building it. A nonprofit parent organization, an aligned accredited university, a venture studio, and an employer coalition, all of which will be anchored in your city, designed to expand who gets to build, lead, and benefit from the economy AI is creating.

THE ROLE

The role of Founding General Manager is, in every meaningful sense, the role of CEO.

You will be the senior leader of Frontier in your city. You will help raise founding capital, assemble and lead a high-performing team, build the culture that defines what Frontier stands for locally, and own the full P&L of your market. You set the vision. You will build the team that everyone wants to be a part of a leader that shapes talent, builds culture and creates a community and ecosystems your city embraces. 

Frontier provides the model, the accreditation, the curriculum, the national platform, and the infrastructure. What no institution can provide from the outside is what you bring: the local relationships, the community trust, the entrepreneurial conviction, and the leadership that turns a national movement into a local institution people are proud to be part of. We are hiring this role in 15 cities across the US. 

The role unfolds across three phases. The first phase is focused on coalition-building, convening local advisory boards, rallying founding capital and establishing Frontier as the visible AI-talent partner in your city. The second phase shifts into operational mode: hiring your team, standing up the physical hub, and launching the first cohort of learners. From year two onward, you run the business — driving enrollment, revenue, learner outcomes, and community impact at scale.

You will not build alone. You are paired with a senior development partner, supported by the personal engagement of FIG founder Fred Swaniker on strategic partnerships, and backed by central infrastructure covering curriculum, accreditation, brand, and shared services. You bring the conviction, the local relationships, and the close.

WHO YOU ARE

• You come from one of several worlds. You might be a technology operator at Google, Anthropic, NVIDIA, Tesla, or an AI-native company. A founder who’s exited a startup and is looking for what compounds. A civic leader who’s built institutions in your city. A philanthropic executive who’s mobilized capital at scale. Or someone running a coding bootcamp or technical training program today. We are not hiring one archetype. We are hiring the underlying traits below, regardless of the world that built them.
• You’re a proven builder. You’ve started a company, launched a major initiative, founded an organization, scaled a movement, or shipped a product at scale. You’ve gone from zero to something real. People who watched you do it remember.
• You build teams people fight to join. Your track record as a people leader is as strong as your track record as a builder. The teams you've led have outperformed. The cultures you've created have attracted exceptional people — and kept them. Former colleagues follow you into new ventures because they know what working for you feels like.
• You’ve mobilized capital before. Not as a development officer running a pipeline — as a founder or principal. You’ve looked someone serious in the eye, told them what you were going to build, and walked away with a commitment. The form of capital doesn’t matter as much as the underlying skill of moving resources around a vision.
• You’ve run a business. You’ve owned a P&L. You’ve hired and built high-performing teams. You’ve managed revenue, costs, and margins.
• You’re an ecosystem player. You sit at the intersection of philanthropy, civic leadership, corporate decision-makers, the entrepreneurial community, or the technology and AI ecosystem in your city or industry. You’re invited to the rooms that matter.
• You’re a storyteller. You can take a complex idea and make it feel inevitable. You can make people believe something is going to happen because you said it would.
• You have a track record. You don’t need permission. You move with confidence, conviction, and just enough impatience to make things happen on a timeline most people would call unrealistic.
• You’re a GYSHIDO operator. Get Your Sh*t Done. No job is out of scope. You roll up your sleeves. You execute. You build the culture by example.
• You have that great combination of courage and humility. You’re willing to challenge the status quo and embrace new challenges; equally willing to ask for help, learn fast, and serve the team.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Represent Frontier’s mission in working to build the next generation of talent for the AI era
• Raise founding capital from foundations, corporate partners, and major donors
• Convene a founding advisory board of civic, philanthropic, and corporate leaders
• Build the employer coalition that anchors the local talent pipeline
• Hire and lead the local team across operations, learner success, employer partnerships, and marketing
• Launch Frontier’s first short courses, micro-credentials, and degree cohorts in your market
• Own full P&L responsibility — revenue, costs, margin, and long-term sustainability of the city hub
• Drive measurable outcomes: job placements, income growth, ventures launched
• Represent Frontier as a thought leader on the local and national stage

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

• 10+ years of senior leadership experience with a mix of entrepreneurial, consulting, operational, and capital-raising responsibilities
• Demonstrated track record of founding, leading, or significantly scaling an organization, business unit, or major initiative — you can point to something you built and name the financial and human impact it had
• Proven ability to mobilize capital: a verifiable history of mobilizing $1M+ around a vision — venture capital raised for a startup, corporate budgets owned and grown, major partnership deals structured, philanthropic capital secured, or board-level resource decisions you led. The category of capital is secondary; the evidence of mobilization is primary.
• Coalition building and stakeholder management: can convene diverse voices and leaders from education, workforce, philanthropy, civic government, and the private sector around a shared agenda and sustain those relationships over time
• P&L ownership experience: you have built the systems, owned the revenue and the corresponding operations and costs
• Team building experience: you have hired, led, and grown a high-performing team in a fast-moving environment
• Activatable trust capital: a meaningful network you can deploy from day one — either deeply rooted in your city’s civic, philanthropic, and corporate community, or deeply rooted in the technology, AI, and entrepreneurial ecosystem with the relationships to bring Fortune 500 employer partners, applied AI partnerships, and learners into your city. Either profile works.

WHAT WE OFFER

You are joining a movement with serious institutional weight behind it:  a fully accredited university, a proven operating model, a national peer network of Founding GMs across launch cities, and a content and thought leadership platform that amplifies what you build locally. Compensation is structured to match the founder profile: base pay, performance-based upside tied to the success of your city hub, and the long-term economics of building something that genuinely compounds.

This role is structured as an independent contractor engagement, not a full-time employee position. As an independent contractor, you will be responsible for your own taxes, benefits, and work equipment. Compensation packages are tailored to individual experience levels, relevant expertise, and may account for geographic cost-of-labor considerations.