Founding General Manager (Phoenix)

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 and build a team that everyone wants to join, shaping talent, culture, community, and ecosystems your city embraces. Frontier provides the model, accreditation, curriculum, national platform, and infrastructure. What you bring—local relationships, community trust, entrepreneurial conviction, and leadership—turns a national movement into a local institution people are proud of. We are hiring this role in 15 cities across the US.

The role unfolds across three phases. Phase one focuses on coalition‑building, convening local advisory boards, rallying founding capital, and establishing Frontier as the visible AI‑talent partner in your city. Phase two 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.

Who You Are

• You come from one of several worlds—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 hire the underlying traits, not one archetype.
• 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, and people remember your impact.
• You build teams people fight to join. Your track record as a people leader is as strong as your builder track record. The teams you’ve led have outperformed and the cultures you’ve created have attracted and kept exceptional people.
• You’ve mobilized capital before—not just as a development officer but as a founder or principal. You’ve secured commitments and moved resources around a vision.
• You’ve run a business. You’ve owned a P&L, hired and built high‑performing teams, and 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 a storyteller. You can turn a complex idea into an inevitable narrative that convinces people it will happen because you said it would.
• You have a track record that demands no permission—you move with confidence, conviction, and enough impatience to achieve on a timeline many would call unrealistic.
• You’re a GYSHIDO operator—Get Your Sh*t Done. No job is out of scope. You roll up your sleeves, execute, and build culture by example.
• You combine courage and humility, willing to challenge the status quo, embrace new challenges, ask for help, learn fast, and serve the team.

What You’ll Do

• Represent Frontier’s mission in building 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 entrepreneurial, consulting, operational, and capital‑raising responsibilities.
• Demonstrated track record of founding, leading, or significantly scaling an organization, business unit, or major initiative—with verifiable financial and human impact.
• Proven ability to mobilize capital: a verifiable history of mobilizing $1M+ around a vision, whether from venture, corporate budgets, partnership deals, philanthropic capital, or board‑level resource decisions.
• Coalition building and stakeholder management: ability to convene diverse voices from education, workforce, philanthropy, civic government, and the private sector around a shared agenda and sustain those relationships.
• P&L ownership experience: systems built to own revenue and corresponding operations and costs.
• Team building experience: hiring, leading, and growing a high‑performing team in a fast‑moving environment.
• Activatable trust capital: a meaningful network deployable from day one—deeply rooted in your city’s civic, philanthropic, and corporate community, or in the technology, AI, and entrepreneurial ecosystem with relationships to Fortune 500 employers, applied AI partners, and learners.

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 our launch cities, and a content and thought leadership platform that amplifies what you build locally.

Compensation is structured to match the founder profile, with base pay and performance‑based upside tied to the success and long‑term potential of your city hub.