Lead - Monitoring & Evaluation - Consulting Firm

Monitoring and Evaluation Lead

Role Brief:

The Research and Operations Lead, MEL is responsible for the overall strategy and day-to-day execution of monitoring and evaluation vertical. The success of the role lies in the ability to seamlessly design and execute customized MEL plans for individual cohorts and grow a young and enthusiastic team under their mentorship.

Roles & Responsibilities:

- Lead the development of the overall MEL strategy.

- Work closely with MEL teams/personnel to build a stronger MEL strategy and to troubleshoot challenges.

- Work closely with the implementation team and the Stakeholder and Content Lead, MEL to lead the development of the MEL strategy.

- Lead the MEL team to execute research projects end-to-end and support them in tasks such as - developing research design, designing cohort-specific survey instruments, digitization of survey instruments, training of enumerators, testing survey instruments, conducting high-frequency checks, cleaning and analysis (STATA, R, Python), creation of insights based on analysis and data visualization, conduct qualitative interviews to develop case studies and triangulate findings.

- Leading design of quasi-experiments to test certain hypotheses with respect to returnable grants and other blended finance models.

- Work closely with all stakeholders to implement experiments - hypothesis creation, getting stakeholder buy-in, creating random samples, designing treatment (intervention), executing timely data collection, and trouble-shooting challenges.

- Lead relationships with partner data-collection and evaluation agencies.

- Lead efforts developing protocols and setting high research standards.

- Lead, coach and manage a young enthusiastic team - creating an inspiring and motivating environment, setting clear goals, delegating tasks, resolving conflicts and troubleshooting, mentoring team members to reach their full potential.

- Support the Stakeholder and Content Lead, MEL in knowledge management (such as - report writing, articles, slide decks)

Qualifications, Skills & Experience:

- Master's degree required (economics, statistics, econometrics, public policy, or other related disciplines)

- 8+ years of experience working with on-ground research projects and managing their end-to-end execution (including research design, sampling, tool creation and data collection and analysis)

- At least 5 years of experience working in social research.

- Excellent understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods (econometrics, statistics, and research design).

- Strong ability to balance the study design and rigour with implementation practicalities.

- Demonstrated experience working on statistics software (Excel, STATA, R, Python, MATLAB, Julia).

- Demonstrated experience working on data visualisation tools (Google Data Studio, Flourish, Tableau).

- Excellent writing and presentation skills.

- Excellent project management and organizational skills.

- Excellent team management skills.

- Fluency and excellent communication skills in English (and fluency in other local Indian languages - Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi desirable).

- Excellent interpersonal skills.

- A flexible work style. Someone that can work easily with ambiguity in a fast-paced environment with short timelines.