TARU Leading Edge - Practice Manager - Risk & Resilience

TARU was established in 1990 as an institution with trans-disciplinary expertise to engage with India's development challenges. In 1996, it was incorporated as TARU Leading Edge under the Companies Act, offering a commitment of cutting edge research and contextualized consulting services to its clients. TARU's expertise has been in Disaster Risk Management & Climate Change, Governance & Institutions, Natural Resource Management, Social Development, Livelihood, Urban Development, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene; Health, CSR, etc. TARU has undertaken policy analysis, strategy development, action research, technical assistance, programme design; project management support, assessments, and evaluations. TARU's clients include corporate, grassroots institutions, INGOs, bilateral and multilateral organizations, as well as States and Central Government.

The last two decades have seen TARU working on a range of institutional, financial, economic, social and technical issues across diverse public systems, cultures and corporate formations in more than a third of rural and urban domains of India. TARU also works in South Asian countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The organization is committed to quality, accuracy and succinctness in its consulting and advisory services. The TARU teams of professionals have extensive national and international experience, along with a strong network of advisors, consultants, partner institutions, associations from different parts of the world.

TARU now embarks on a new journey expanding its reach, capacity and business while retaining its core agenda of providing transformative solutions to the development challenges.

Position Specification :

Position : Practice Manager - Risk and Resilience

Location : Delhi

Reporting to : Director - Risk and Resilience

Close working relationship with : Directors / Associate Directors of other Practices within TARU, Senior Consultants, Consultants

Qualification : PhD and or Master's degree or a Professional degree in Civil Engineering / Environmental Engineering / Urban Planning or any other discipline relevant to this role

Experience : Minimum 10 years of relevant experience.

Travel : Extensive travelling

Type of Employment : Full time

Roles & Responsibilities :

Operational and Project Management :

- Ensuring that work plans for the Risk and Resilience are developed in line with the approved strategy.

- Overall supervision of the project as well as technical and administrative staff.

- Hold regular one-to-one line management meetings and/or telecoms with distance reportees, document the decisions and ensure agreed actions and decisions are followed through.

- To ensure that targets as approved in the quarterly work plans are being achieved with minimum standards agreed with the team, partners and allies.

- Compliance with organizational systems, including responsibility for quality and timely management reporting on monthly and quarterly basis.

- Steering and ensuring production of quality assessments, baselines, concept notes and proposals with budgets.

- Proactively identifying and pursuing opportunities for project development and growth for community-based disaster risk reduction.

- Lead innovation by piloting new approaches and models promoting community-based disaster management and climate change adaptation.

- Ensure exit strategy and sustainability of the impact achieved.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) and Knowledge Management :

- Ensuring a user friendly monitoring system, methodology, tools/methods, checklists, indicators, reporting formats are in place to track immediate results/outputs and impact/outcomes against planned initiatives.

- Building knowledge management and ensuring its dissemination e.g. through tracking and generation of evidence of impact of change model through collection of best/good practices, case studies, lessons learned to enhance project quality and replication/scale up by other actors (government and non-government)

Financial Management and Budgeting :

- To assist the director in preparing budget for the Risk and Resilience on annual basis.

- To monitor actual expenditures as provided by finance against budget forecasts and phasing and keep track of budget variances

- To ensure overall project cost effectiveness and efficient utilization of funds.

- Responsible for ensuring financial management controls are effectively practiced.

Donor Contract Management and Fundraising :

- Accountable for overall and day-to-day management of donors contracts

- Provide support to, and ensure capacity building of team members, partners and allies in developing their understanding and practicing compliance with the mandatory requirements of different donors as per the signed contracts with them.

- Work closely with the director and associate director in implementing funding strategy and in meeting fund raising targets for disaster management, risk and resilience projects.

- Support director and associate director in diversifying the donor base of Risk and Resilience sector.

- Ensure accurate and timely reports for TARU and for donors according to approved guidelines.

Challenges :

- The incumbent will have to be a mature individual who should be able to build trust and confidence with counterparts based on sector expertise-both technical and non-technical and deal with team members who have been around for several years at TARU.

- Oversee proper coordination of activities/liaising with multiple stakeholders at national, state and local levels including partners and the implementing teams who might be based in different locations across India.

- Aligning work style with established work culture and leadership team.

- Maintaining quality control in terms of project delivery and adherence to timelines especially in a fast paced environment.

Competencies & Soft Skills :

- An experienced manager with strategic thinking, good analytical and influencing/negotiation skills.

- Capable of taking initiatives on their own with minimum level of supervision.

- Open to working in a multi-cultural environment and effective with both small and large teams.

- Mature, - people-oriented- in approach with the ability to motivate and inspire staff to achieve at a high level.

- High personal & professional integrity.

- Strong sense of ownership for every deliverable and ability to deal with complexity.

- Strong external representational skills with the aptitude to articulate effectively

- Sensitivity towards gender, ethnic and cultural identities.

- Affinity with TARU's culture, vision and mission

- Strategic and lateral thinking with an ability to involve other people and build on their ideas.

- Effective communication; persuasive and able to explain specialized concepts in simple terms.

Experience :

Must Haves :

- A Post Graduate with a minimum 10 years- experience of which at least 3 years have been in a leadership/strategic role.

- Proven experience in designing and delivering (end to end project management) of large multi-location projects in the domain of disaster management, risk, climate change and resilience.

- Past experience with field based research, M&E frameworks and innovative models in the relevant field.

- Demonstrated expertise in managing a range of internal and external stakeholders including team members, donors, civil society partners and government officials.

- Past experience in developing and submitting proposals in response to RFP's for the purpose of business development.

- Ability to travel extensively especially to remote rural areas.

- Excellent oral and written communication skills in English

Preferable :

- First-hand knowledge of the policies of government and position of key international actors in India and of policies and projects relevant to Risk and Resilience.

- Highly advanced IT skills with exposure to software's relevant to the role

CTC :

- The remuneration shall not be a constraint for the deserving candidate.

Last Day to Apply - 15th Sept 2015

Apply :

Please apply with your updated CV and include current CTC in your CV.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for the interview.