Position: Policy Director

Location: Delhi

Providing a quality education to India's 240 million children is our country's greatest challenge. The brightest talent is required to address the complexity and scale challenges of achieving this goal.

At Central Square Foundation, we seek to achieve transformational standards of educational excellence for children in disadvantaged communities in India. We support exceptional social entrepreneurs with powerful ideas, undertake application-oriented research, provide a platform for sharing of innovation, and collaborate with other stakeholders in the ecosystem to find policy solutions - all towards enabling sustained change in India's educational system.

CSF's team members combine a deep commitment to education with operational excellence. We are a young organisation with a dynamic entrepreneurial environment, dedicated to achieving significant and sustained reforms in the Indian education system.

We believe there is no silver bullet and the multitude of solutions will need to be contextual, both people & process centric, innovative and technology-enabled.

Position Summary

The Policy Director will lead the research, communication and advocacy functions to develop and implement CSF's policy agenda of systemic transformation of K-12 education in India. This role is critical to link learnings from our venture philanthropy work to the strategic policy and advocacy agenda for systemic reform.

The Director will lead the team of managers to analyse information, develop insights and communicate findings through a combination of qualitative, quantitative and secondary research. This position provides an opportunity to identify evidence-based insights, integrate best practices from a global perspective, and apply these to affect education reforms at a local and national level.

The Policy Director position is a key member of the senior leadership team at CSF, and will report into the CEO.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

I. Policy Research Leadership

- Lead the research team in identifying themes and delivering rigorous, relevant and evidence-based research to an international standard

- Identify opportunities for CSF to fund innovative research in education

- Develop a robust Measurement & Evaluation function within CSF and build this capacity among our grant partners

- Build networks within academic and policy research communities focused on education

II. Advocacy Leadership

- Develop policy agendas for CSF focus areas

- Build effective alliances to promote education reform agendas

- Source and maintain effective working relationships with key senior public officials at the central, state and local levels

- Develop targeted materials to communicate key messages to policy makers

III. Communication Leadership

- Build CSF's brand as a leading philanthropy working on education and be a media representative for CSF, through traditional and online media campaigns

- Produce and edit major CSF collateral materials, including annual report and newsletters, press releases, advisories and background memos

- Work in collaboration with other CSF teams to put knowledge into action through workshops, seminars, forums, symposia and conferences

- Develop CSF and its grant partners- communication ability to place stories of their work in national and regional media

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities:

- Masters degree or equivalent with high levels of academic achievement

- Working knowledge and broad understanding of policy issues in education and advocacy strategies

- Demonstrated track record of at least 10-15 years of policy-related work in a corporate/ non-profit/ think tank and/ or consultancy, with experience in public policy research and advocacy

- Ability to develop and maintain external relationships with senior government officials and media persons

- Excellent research skills and the ability to analyse qualitative and quantitative data

- Strong written and verbal communication skills, strong presentation skills

- Ability to lead convenings and meetings, deliver presentations, give speeches, and represent CSF to external audiences

- Ability to lead a team including mentoring colleagues

- Excellent project management skills - ability to manage large, long-term, complex projects

- Capacity to work effectively independently, without a support staff

- Demonstrated commitment and interest in education of children from marginalized backgrounds

- A passionate belief that all children, regardless of their family's social-economic background can achieve at the highest levels and that quality education can be a differentiating factor

Desired Qualities:

- Entrepreneurial spirit and - can-do- attitude

- Operating style suited to working in a small-organization setting, where teamwork and resourcefulness are highly valued

- Have good supervisory skills and be able to lead and guide the research and advocacy teams

- Ability to work closely with fellow leadership team members, and brainstorm with them through different stages of research and policy work

- Visionary, yet detail-oriented

- Voracious reader, with an analytical bent of mind

- Willingness to travel at moderate levels

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales and will depend upon the candidate's experience levels.

Interested candidates should submit a cover letter (including 2-3 paragraphs on how the current position at Central Square Foundation aligns to their long term professional aspirations) and resume via email with subject line - Application for Policy Director-

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