Fortify Health - Associate Director - Programs

Associate Director of Programs

About Fortify Health

Fortify Health is a GiveWell-funded NGO with a team of dedicated entrepreneurs working to improve nutritional iron status and reduce iron deficiency anaemia at population scale in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, India. We aim to expand in other states in India in the next three years. We improve nutritional iron status through fortification, a recognised, effective public health intervention that involves the addition of essential micronutrients to staple foods.

At Fortify Health, we support millers who are willing to adopt fortification by proactively removing industry barriers, and we work with state governments to adopt and expand fortification in social safety net programs (with a focus on the Public Distribution System). Complementing our entrepreneurial model, we provide nutrition training, career development opportunities and a wide range of resources to guide the team.

Scaling the coverage of fortified atta through open market mill partnerships forms the core of our work. The Associate Director of Programs will manage and help scale the programs and regulatory affairs teams, create and streamline program-related processes and strengthen important industrial institutional partnerships in India.

Position Overview

The Associate Director of Programs will support the strategic development, execution, and ongoing refinement of Fortify Health's program growth. They will oversee the work of the program and regulatory affairs teams which include 13 team members and will line manage 4 team members. They will lead quarterly goal setting, create mill-level workflows, and streamline processes. This role will be hugely influential on the future of Fortify Health's impact, and will be instrumental in our goal to reach at least 4.7 million people by 2025.

The Associate Director of Programs will be analytical, a self-starter, and have excellent verbal and written communication skills across a range of contexts. They will have worked in the food industry in a strategic management or business expansion role and be passionate about improving nutrition in India through industrial applications. The Associate Director of Programs will initially report to Fortify Health's Director of Growth.

Responsibilities and Activities

Management of Programs and Regulatory Affairs teams

Establish strong and productive relationships with direct reports (Program Managers and Regulatory Affairs Officers) including regular communication; timely performance feedback; offer mentorship, training and advancement opportunities

Support Program Managers in setting quarterly targets for mill onboarding, fortification volumes, hiring and process improvements. Also hold the Program Managers accountable for meeting these targets

Create implementation pipelines for quarterly targets and test new ideas to increase Fortify Health's coverage at the ground level

Communicate important mill-level updates, challenges and potential solutions to the Director of Growth and share their feedback with Program Managers

Understand Fortify Health's scale up strategy from the Chief Strategy Officer and Director of Growth, and translate it into actionable steps for the programs and regulatory teams.

Lead streamlining of processes in the programs and regulatory affairs teams and communicate them effectively in order to ensure smooth implementation

Identify and co-lead important industrial and regulatory partnerships

Lead Fortify Health's retailer expansion

Culture and Team Building

Proactively provide mentorship to the Program Managers and Regulatory Affairs Officers

Support the Director of Growth in training and learning and development activities for the program and regulatory teams

Consistently lead by example, and communicate Fortify Health's values to managers and teams

Support the Director of Growth and the Operations team in the implementation of mechanisms and policies that encourage team collaboration, communication and bonding

Identify hiring needs within the program and regulatory teams and support the Director of Growth and middle management with the recruitment process

Requirements

Minimum 5-7 years of experience in management, business strategy and expansion in the food and nutrition industry in India (ideally in a growing company, fast-growing NGO or a large corporate)

Master's in Business Administration, Marketing, Supply Chain Management or related field from a reputed institute in India or abroad, or an additional 2 years of equivalent work experience

Demonstrated ability to manage teams effectively and empathetically

Strong motivation to improve nutrition and health at scale in India

Exceptionally strong verbal and written communication skills in both English and Hindi

Positive and open communication style, with a growth mindset

Ability to engage empathetically, clearly, and openly with a range of senior stakeholders, and internal teams

Excellent ability to learn, absorb and implement new information, including interpreting and using important numbers/metrics to project outcomes

Experience in using data and analytics for decision making

Ability to actively listen to and triage key information from different teams, and use that to inform considered decisions

Strong problem solving skills and ability to innovate effective solutions in challenging situations

Excellent organisation skills and ability to work effectively on multiple projects

Excellent ability to develop partnerships with a range of institutions

Excellent documentation and presentation skills

Exceptionally high attention to detail

High proficiency in MS Office and ability to learn relevant software quickly

Based in Pune or Indore, or willingness to relocate to Pune or Indore

Willingness to travel around 30% of the time (this may include within base location, intra-state travel and relocation)

Desirable attributes

Degree in Food Technology, Food Science or related field

Work experience in wheat flour or related segment

Experience working with remote team members

Terms of employment

Contract for two years, renewal by mutual agreement

Salary and benefits

Ranging from INR 150,000 to INR 200,000 per month, dependent on experience

Next stepsc

You'll answer a mix of questions about yourself and your situational judgement. After the job closes, your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers.

If you are shortlisted, we'll invite you to the next step, which includes an interview with Fortify Health's Director of Growth and Director of Research, Monitoring & Evaluation. Steps after this include an assessment, followed by a second round of interview, and finally reference checks. We value giving feedback, so at the end of the application process we'll share how well you performed.

Expected duration of this application process: 5 to 6 weeks

We are an equal opportunities employer

We are committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, caste, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.