Associate Director - Governance/Advocacy & Public Policy

Description

One of India's biggest challenges is providing quality education to its 240 million children. The scale and complexity of education in India demands that the brightest talent engage in finding solutions.

At this organisation, they seek to achieve transformational standards of educational excellence for children in disadvantaged communities in India. They 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.

Their team members combine a deep commitment to education with operational excellence. They are a young organization with a dynamic entrepreneurial environment, dedicated to achieving significant and sustained reforms in the Indian education system.

Position Summary

The Associate Director, Governance, Advocacy and Public Policy will serve on the leadership team and will provide value added guidance and thought leadership on all governance efforts - including creating knowledge and tools to benchmark education systems, and developing and testing policy hypothesis for their improvement. This role directly reports to the Managing Director.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to

- Ensuring alignment between the foundation's governance work and overall strategy

- Conceptualising research initiatives on key governance issues such as performance-linked public funding, assessments etc.

- Developing and testing hypothesis on key governance levers by closely liaising with other teams (for example, with the policy and advocacy team, the state delivery team etc.)

- Developing partnerships with other policy experts, researchers and think tanks to identify collaboration opportunities

- Representing the organisation in key policy discussions and events at the state and national level

- Ensuring timely and high-quality outputs linked to strategic organisational goals and priorities

- Managing and leading a team of high-performing individuals

- Supporting the Managing Directors in key organisation-wide initiatives such as investment decisions, strategic planning and talent management

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities

- Masters degree or equivalent in relevant fields: including management, economics, social sciences and public policy

- 15+ years of work experience with managerial responsibilities, demonstrating superb project delivery and team leadership

- Experience in growing and managing team members

- Excellent research skills and the ability to analyze complex qualitative and quantitative data, craft possible solutions, and recommend actions

- Ability to build and maintain positive and collaborative relationships both within and outside the organization, including with colleagues, schools, regulators, foundations, researchers, grantees, and education product/service providers

- Ability to lead meetings, deliver presentations, and represent the organisation to external audiences

- Strong written and verbal communication skills, strong presentation skills

- Strong planning and organizational skills, and an ability to be able to set priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines

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

- Excellent leadership skills, including ability to manage multiple projects at a time

Compensation

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