Founder's Associate

The way companies innovate is broken. The systems built to create and protect ideas can’t keep up with the pace of change. Today, 90% of S&P 500 company value is intangible (e.g., IP) — yet R&D and IP teams spend half their time buried in manual work, sifting through patents and paperwork instead of pushing the frontier forward. The tools of creating and protecting are stuck in the past. We’re here to fix that. Ankar is building the AI Platform for the Trillion Dollar Innovation Economy — a suite of tools that helps inventors explore, create, and protect ideas. We’re removing the friction from the invention process, starting with IP protection and expanding toward creation and exploration.

We’ve raised >$24M to date from Tier-1 VCs like Atomico, Index Ventures, Norrsken, Daphni, and angels like the Founder of Hugging Face, CEO from Datadog, and Leaders from DeepMind and OpenAI. We’re already working with the world’s most innovative companies including Fortune 500 company L’Oréal and global law firm Fenwick. Expanding our world-class team with alumni from Palantir, Amazon, and BCG to tackle the $1T+ innovation market. We’re just getting started.

Ankar is looking for a highly organised, execution-focused Founder's Associate to work across growth, marketing, hiring, and operations. You will act as a force multiplier across some of the highest-leverage areas of the business as we scale. This is a true generalist role for someone who is hands‑on, pragmatic, and energized by variety. You will help remove bottlenecks, build repeatable processes, and drive forward core business priorities across Hiring and Growth/Marketing.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll work closely with the team to support Ankar’s next stage of scale. The role will span multiple workstreams, sitting between Growth & Marketing, Hiring, and Operations. You’ll be expected to bring structure, momentum, and extremely high standards of follow‑through.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Hiring: build a hiring machine that attracts the best people with a drive for the mission
• Supporting hiring across the business, including screening calls and candidate coordination
• Helping source strong talent through employer brand and related events

• Growth & Marketing: make Ankar a respected and desirable brand
• Supporting growth and GTM initiatives across sales and marketing
• Helping plan, prepare for, and execute events, conferences, and external‑facing company moments
• Supporting inbound lead generation and improving the systems around it
• Managing and supporting company LinkedIn content and distribution
• Working closely with our Founding Growth team on priority commercial initiatives

• Operations: ensure we operate in a world‑class way
• Automating manual operational workflows and improving internal systems
• Building and redesigning operations processes so they are repeatable, scalable, and resilient
• Providing finance, execution, and general operational support where needed

What we are looking for:

• A highly organised, systematic operator with exceptional execution discipline
• A true generalist who can move quickly across different workstreams throughout the year
• Strong attention to detail and the ability to create order from ambiguity
• Someone who can act as a force multiplier across high‑pain‑point areas of the business
• Excellent communication skills and comfort working closely with founders and senior leaders
• Strong judgement, high agency, and the ability to operate without needing heavy direction

Ideally, you would also have:

• Experience in an early‑stage or high‑growth company, either as an early hire, founder, or operator
• Experience building or significantly improving an operations function from scratch
• Some exposure to hiring, recruiting, or talent operations
• A strong understanding of GTM as an end‑to‑end function across sales and marketing
• Experience supporting events, conferences, employer brand, or content distribution
• Familiarity with automating workflows and making manual processes scalable

Culture at Ankar:

• Contrarian: we think from first principles: We think deeply, question assumptions, and build from first principles. The best ideas come from clarity and rigour.
• Creative: we build with taste: We’re building the R&D tools for the AI era and shaping what applied research looks like over the next 20 years. We care about precision, quality, and systems that last.
• Competitiveness: we play to win: We move with urgency and set a very high bar for ourselves and each other. Every win raises the bar. Every challenge sharpens us.

This role is not for you if…

• You need a highly structured environment, a predefined playbook, regular working hours, or a schedule that never requires travel.
• We operate with high autonomy and ownership, expect our team to go above and beyond, be obsessed with our mission and thrive in ambiguity rather than wait for direction.
• You prefer long planning cycles and certainty before acting. We move quickly, ship often, and adapt based on customer feedback and new information.
• You want to manage the work rather than do the work. We’re builders first, and everyone is expected to contribute directly to creating exceptional products.
• You take it personally when ideas are challenged, priorities shift, or work gets redirected. We care more about finding the right answer than defending a particular one.

What we put behind our people:

• Health Insurance: Full private health & dental coverage for you and your dependents.
• Pension: Flexible pension scheme with up to 5% employer matching on qualifying earnings.
• Food on us: Team lunches twice a week, plus dinner when working late in the office.
• Cycle to work: Green Commute initiative scheme (up to £3k) to help you get a new bike tax‑free.
• Way we work: We combine deep, in‑person collaboration (3 days/week in our Shoreditch office) with flexibility and trust. What matters is ownership, impact, and results, not where you work from.

What else you might want to know:

• Compensation: We pay competitive salaries and will reward you with a substantial equity package.
• Hiring process:
• (1) 30min introductory chat with Operations Lead
• (2) 30min introductory chat with Founder
• (3) onsite: 45min with Founder and 45min case study with Operations Lead