Universities are widely acknowledged as an important source of knowledge for corporate innovation, and collaboration with universities plays an important role in companies’ open innovation strategy. However, little is known about the human capital components required for collaboration with universities. Analysing the results of the survey among over 500 company managers we define the universal employees’ skills required for company’ successful collaborations with external stakeholders. Then through analysing qualitative interviews data we distinguish between these skills and capabilities required specifically for sustainable and successful collaboration with universities. We have identified and validated 28 skills and abilities required for collaboration with external partners and defined the key of them. We have also defined the key peculiarities of such skills as communication, trust building, relationship building, IPR management and negotiation for the context of collaboration with universities. Our research has revealed an importance of expectation management skills for university-industry collaboration (UIC) context. We found that human capital for UIC is to be continuously developed and contracted by engagement in various relationships with academia. Our research helps in filling the research gap on human capital components required from the company specifically for collaboration with academia. It also serves practitioners with a profile of a general (archetype) UIC manager.