Are you passionate about shaping and building new ventures? Ajinomoto Group Ventures is looking for talented hands-on operators to support our new Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) program.

Purpose of the role

The new Entrepreneur-in-Residence will help design, pressure-test, execute new ventures at the intersection of nutrition science, digital health, and consumer food. This is not a strategy consulting role — it is a build role. The right candidate moves fast, experiments deliberately, and is as comfortable talking to a hospital dietitian as they are building and presenting a financial model.

The EIR will work very closely with the Ajinomoto Group Ventures and innovation strategy team members to implement business model design, rapid market testing, and present to AGV’s EIR committee. Successful concepts will become new businesses with the EIR in a founding leadership role.

Most EIR programs ask you to bring your own idea and uncover opportunities in the corporate sponsor’s network. This program inverts that. AGV provides blueprints of business creation opportunities and access to Ajinomoto Group’s unique proprietary assets — clinical nutrition formulations, a patient population, amino acid science, a global manufacturing network, and a Japanese corporate parent with over 100 years of food and nutrition expertise. Your job is to validate the desirability and viability of the new business concepts and build them into true venture businesses.

Qualifications

•    Hands-on founding, early-stage operating, or venture building experience — you’ve built something, launched something, or led a zero-to-one effort inside a larger organization

•    At least 5 years of experience working in one of these segments: nutrition, pharma, health tech, CPG

•    Fluency in building financial models  

•    Demonstrated ability to take an ambiguous opportunity and structure it into a testable business concept

•    Self-driven, adaptive and collaborative team player with superior communications and reporting skills

•    Intellectual curiosity with strong research abilities and demonstrable resourcefulness

•    Must be based in Boston or San Francisco Bay Area

•    Must be available to work 30 hours a week for a minimum of 12 months

Responsibilities

·   Venture Thesis and Business Plan Development: Test hypotheses about market whitespace, grounded in customer discovery and competitive analysis. Build 6-month, 12-month, and 18-month business plans for execution. Build financial models sufficient for investment committee presentation.

·   Rapid Experimentation & Test-and-Learn: Design and run structured experiments to test core business assumptions before committing to full development, including customer willingness-to-pay, channel fit, reimbursement feasibility, clinical credibility. Build prototypes to gather real-world signal; document learnings systematically for AGV’s institutional knowledge.

·   Stakeholder Collaboration: Work closely with venture and investment strategy team members as well as other internal and external stakeholders to understand product capabilities, regulatory constraints, and customer relationships. Present venture progress to AGV at defined milestones, with clear go/ no-go recommendations.

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To apply, send your CV to venturing@ajiusa.com. Please include a short message on why you want to join our team and use "2026 Entrepreneur in Residence" in your email subject.

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