Job Opportunity for Policy Analyst at Wadhwani Foundation in New Delhi

Job Overview:

Position Name: Policy Analyst

Work Location: Delhi

Department: WITP

About Wadhwani Foundation (www.wfglobal.org):

Mission: Accelerating economic development in emerging economies through high-value job creation Objectives: Enabling the creation of 10M jobs and placement of 25M by 2030 across 20-25 emerging economies

Wadhwani Foundation is a not-for-profit with the primary mission of accelerating economic development in emerging economies by driving large-scale job creation through entrepreneurship, innovation and skills development. Founded in 2000 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, today the Foundation is scaling impact in 25 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America through various Initiatives.  More details on the various programs at the end of the document.

Job Description:

Role Context: The Policy Analyst, Business Reforms will focus efforts on supporting reforms that unlock the job-creation potential of the private sector. This work will involve potential reforms from the central government, as well as Indian states. The role will be a mixture of research / writing, and direct engagement/ advocacy with government agencies and other relevant stakeholders. The role will support the Wadhwani Foundation policy function driven out of the U.S. think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), based in Washington, DC, reporting to the Director, Technology + Policy at the Wadhwani Foundation, based in New Delhi.

Role & Responsibilities:

• Engage Indian policymakers across multiple ministries, highlighting the importance of reforms to improve the business environment to allow for faster creation of “good jobs” in India- with a focus on start-ups and small business.
• Organize events, public and private, to build public awareness around policy reform objectives and increase visibility of the Wadhwani Foundation.
• Strengthen our existing “States Weekly”- improving coverage of state-level business reforms, and helping connect the updates to the primary source material (laws/ regulations).
• Track related research reports from India and other key nations that relate to India’s business reforms.
• Engage related groups that can help the Wadhwani Foundation achieve its reform mission, including business leaders, think tanks, trade associations, regulators, business/ technology journalists, and academics.
• Prepare written briefs that bring up new or neglected reform ideas. These can include editorials in major publications or long-form reports released directly.

Skills, Experience & Qualification:

• The incumbent should have an undergraduate degree.
• The incumbent should have at least 8 years work experience, in roles that focus on policy issues that impact business growth and job creation.

Critical competencies include:

o    An existing network of policymakers and policy influencers that can be inducted into this work;

o    A deep understanding of fundamental aspects of business growth- the types of reforms will have a real impact on a company’s ability to grow and hire more employees;

o    Experience in research and writing. In particular- assessing and prioritizing different views, to determine the highest-impact policy ideas on which to focus;

o    Experience in public speaking, both at events, as well as interactions with journalists. 

Additional desirable competencies include:

o    An existing network of state-level policymakers and policy influencers that can be inducted into this work;

o    Experience in managing social media accounts for maximum visibility;

o    Experience working in a matrixed organization, where the incumbent has to work horizontally with stakeholders in different, related units to the person’s mission;

o    Budget management- maximizing impact on a defined budget;

o    Cross-border functionality- working across time zones; reporting to foreign-based leaders.

There are three critical personal characteristics:

o    Impact: Our progress is measured in terms of change, not “papers” or “events.” New policies must be adopted; existing policies must be positively changed due to our interventions. This role is actively pursuing reform, not passively calling for reform.

o    Initiative: The incumbent must work hard to get the right meetings, get invited onto the right committees, and to build a powerful network to reinforce the Foundation’s interests.

o    Communication: A successful incumbent will constantly make connections of value to other members of the Foundation, related bodies like WITP or the Wadhwani Institute of Artificial Intelligence (WIAI), and the Wadhwani Chair at CSIS in Washington, Dc.

Behavioural attributes: E.g. sense of urgency, ability to work under pressure, ability to work with global teams (if role requires), ability to be comfortable with change and uncertainty, strong work ethic etc.

KRAs/ KPIs:

• Support the adoption of four policies/ policy changes strongly attributable to the Wadhwani Foundation’s engagement that are linked to business growth and job creation, or to the successful implementation of government programs requiring the use of emerging technologies.
• Support the organization of two large events in the first year in the role. These could be in-person with 100+ attendees, or virtual. The topics should range from business reform ideas, to technology reform ideas related to improved public service delivery.
• Support in the preparation of two long-form policy briefs, articulating the importance of specific state-level reforms in India.
• Support the hosting of six (6) digital workshops with Indian states, focused on reform ideas related to business growth or technology policy.
• Bring our existing “States Policy Weekly” journal to include 90 percent primary sources related to specific bills/regulations/policies on which we report.
• Help build the readership of our “States Weekly” journal.