Consultant, Unum Ventures

When you join the team at Unum, you become part of an organization committed to helping you thrive.

Here, we work to provide the employee benefits and service solutions that enable employees at our client companies to thrive throughout life’s moments. And this starts with ensuring that every one of our team members enjoys opportunities to succeed both professionally and personally. To enable this, we provide: 

• Award-winning culture 

• Inclusion and diversity as a priority 

• Performance Based Incentive Plans

• Competitive benefits package that includes: Health, Vision, Dental, Short & Long-Term Disability 

• Generous PTO (including paid time to volunteer!) 

• Up to 9.5% 401(k) employer contribution 

• Mental health support 

• Career advancement opportunities 

• Student loan repayment options 

• Tuition reimbursement

• Flexible work environments 

*All the benefits listed above are subject to the terms of their individual Plans.

And that’s just the beginning…  

With 10,000 employees helping more than 39 million people worldwide, every role at Unum is meaningful and impacts the lives of our customers. Whether you’re directly supporting a growing family, or developing online tools to help navigate a difficult loss, customers are counting on the combined talents of our entire team. Help us help others, and join Team Unum today! 

General Summary:

The Consultant, Unum Ventures will manage a portfolio of early-stage startups participating in The Foundry, serving as a trusted advisor as founders strengthen their businesses and prepare for successful enterprise partnerships. This role will help startups identify and address growth and readiness gaps, establish and track key milestones, navigate Unum’s requirements and resources, and build relationships with relevant internal stakeholders. The Consultant will combine startup advisory, relationship management, and program execution to help portfolio companies make meaningful progress while supporting Unum Ventures’ strategic priorities.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Responsible for managing a portfolio of early-stage startups, serving as a trusted advisor to founders and helping them define priorities, establish milestones, and make measurable progress toward enterprise readiness.
• Develop a deep understanding of each startup's business model, product, customer needs, and growth challenges. Provide guidance and coaching to help founders strengthen their offering, refine their strategy, and prepare to engage successfully with enterprise customers.
• Connect startups with subject matter experts, mentors, advisors, and internal stakeholders who can help address key business, product, operational, or enterprise readiness challenges.
• Serve as subject matter expert for strategic intelligence in supporting Ventures’ teams, conducting market, industry, and competitive research to help founders and Ventures teams identify opportunities, risks, and emerging trends.
• Facilitate regular portfolio reviews and stakeholder engagement sessions to align startup objectives, program milestones, and strategic opportunities with Unum priorities.
• Partner with internal teams across the business to help startups understand strategy, demand, enterprise requirements and navigate potential pathways to partnership, pilot, or commercial engagement.
• Manage startup progress through a structured portfolio management framework, tracking milestones, identifying risks and growth opportunities, measuring enterprise readiness, and ensuring startups receive the support needed to advance through the Ventures ecosystem.
• Support startup sourcing, evaluation, and onboarding activities, providing insights on founder strengths, business readiness, strategic fit, and potential opportunities for engagement across Unum Ventures.
• May perform other duties as assigned.

Job Specifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 3-5 years of experience in startups, consulting, venture programs, accelerator/incubator environments, innovation, product strategy, business development, or related fields.
• Develop and maintain excellent working relationships with internal stakeholders to oversee partnership operational connections.
• Entrepreneurial mindset; a self-starter with a problem-solving orientation
• Excellent written and oral communication skills – both in presentation style with large groups and informally with smaller groups
• Ability to think and act both strategically and tactically.
• Driven, self-motivated, a consultative nature and a great problem solver.
• Proven ability to negotiate, influence, and persuade with internal and external partners.
• Comfortable working with stakeholders across the organization with varied levels of seniority
• Strong relationship management/conflict management skills
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills. Must possess a positive, professional company image to external customers.

Unum and Colonial Life are part of Unum Group, a Fortune 500 company and leading provider of employee benefits to companies worldwide. Headquartered in Chattanooga, TN, with international offices in Ireland, Poland and the UK, Unum also has significant operations in Portland, ME, and Baton Rouge, LA - plus over 35 US field offices. Colonial Life is headquartered in Columbia, SC, with over 40 field offices nationwide.

Unum is an equal opportunity employer, considering all qualified applicants and employees for hiring, placement, and advancement, without regard to a person's race, color, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, military status, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or protected veteran status.

The base salary range for applicants for this position is listed below. Unless actual salary is indicated above in the job description, actual pay will be based on skill, geographical location and experience.

$75,500.00-$142,700.00

Additionally, Unum offers a portfolio of benefits and rewards that are competitive and comprehensive including healthcare benefits (health, vision, dental), insurance benefits (short & long-term disability), performance-based incentive plans, paid time off, and a 401(k) retirement plan with an employer match up to 5% and an additional 4.5% contribution whether you contribute to the plan or not.  All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of individual Plans.

Company:

Unum