Website Fortify Health

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.

Fortify Health supports millers who are willing to adopt fortification by proactively removing industry barriers, and works 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.

Position overview

The Director of Partnerships will be responsible for:

leading, implementing and innovating on Fortify Health’s work in facilitating the provision of fortified atta to ashram schools run by the Tribal Development Department in Maharashtra
building partnerships with state governments in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab to mainstream atta fortification through a Public Distribution System (PDS)

The Director will lead and grow Fortify Health’s Partnerships team to achieve the organisational goals of government partnerships. Their focus areas will be building and managing relations with government, NGO partners and other stakeholders at both state and national level to mainstream atta fortification through the PDS system. They will lead Fortify Health’s work in developing and managing coalitions of all stakeholders.

The Director of Partnerships will ideally have experience in working with senior bureaucrats at the state and national level, and the ability to build strong connections with government and civil society stakeholders, especially at the level of Minister and Principal Secretary of a major state department. They will have the exciting opportunity to bring their own unique experience into this role and have a significant impact on Fortify Health’s growth. The Director of Partnerships will be the first-ever Director of Partnerships that Fortify Health has hired, and will report to Fortify Health’s Chief Strategy Officer (CSO).

Job responsibilities:

SETTING UP A PARTNERSHIP WITH A STATE GOVERNMENT FOR PDS CHAKKI ATTA FORTIFICATION

Identify possible approaches to convince priority state governments to adopt chakki atta fortification through the PDS system
Build a scoping team to build partnerships with the PDS department
Build proposals for PDS fortification that the state govt can adopt cost effectively with support from Fortify Health
Establish Fortify Health as a technical advisor to the state government on PDS chakki atta fortification
Liaise with NGOs, individuals, think tanks who can support FH in building a rapport with relevant government functionaries
Work with Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation and Chief Strategy Officer on planning for a study or impact evaluation after smooth project rollout

SCALING UP WORK WITH TRIBAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT, MAHARASHTRA

Expand our work in the Tribal Development Department, Maharashtra, to all ashram schools in 1-2 years. This includes building appropriate frameworks for stakeholder plans for every stage of implementation
Ensure that the Partnerships team shares regular insights with relevant stakeholders within and across departments within to improve coverage and quality of fortification, including grievance redressal mechanisms
Innovate on Fortify Health’s model to cost effectively supply fortified chakki atta at scale across various models of atta delivery used in ashram schools in Maharashtra

LEADING AND MANAGING THE PARTNERSHIPS TEAM

Lead the Partnerships team at Fortify health to ensure we have the best possible team with the most effective support they need to achieve our partnership targets
Line manage all Partnerships Managers
Work with other Directors, CSO and CEO to develop strategies for the organisation expanding government work and ensure that the partnership strategy fits with the larger organisational goals
Develop feasible yearly and quarterly targets for the Partnerships team as per organisational goals.
Communicate goals to the team and brainstorm on challenges they may face in achieving the goals
Ensure performance evaluation and management of the Partnerships team members
Mentor and build knowledge base and motivation of the Partnerships team
Lead hiring, onboarding and learning and development of the Partnerships team

BUILDING FORTIFY HEALTH’S GOVERNMENT STRATEGY

Innovate on Fortify Health’s government strategy to improve our cost effectiveness as well as increasing coverage of fortified atta supplied through safety net programs (SNPs) in India
Use data and evidence to update/sharpen strategy based on clear, testable criteria
Identify advisors and work with them to help us critically analyse our PDS partnership model and refine it
Work with the Directors of Fortify Health to ensure our open market and government strategy are amplifying each other’s impact
Identify risks of our strategy and find innovative ways to manage it and include it in implementing our strategy

FUNDER AND FINANCE SUPPORT

Update funder narrative reports with developments in the Partnerships team, with special focus on data
Participate in funder calls to discuss progress of the Partnerships team or to make pitches of government work to potential funders
Support operations team in ensuring expenses of the Partnerships team are logged and anticipate upcoming activities to estimate yearly cash flows for the Partnerships team

BUILDING VISIBILITY OF GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIPS WORK WITH STAKEHOLDERS IN THE COUNTRY

Present Fortify Health’s work with government SNPS across various national and state level forums/webinars
Establish Fortify Health as a thought partners for state governments and national level organisations interested in mainstreaming chakki atta fortification in SNPs, especially in PDS
Identify coalitions/stakeholders that Fortify Health should be a part of to build buy in of large-scale food fortification in India

Requirements

At least 6 years experience working with government stakeholders, either as a part of a large-scale research project or an implementation project. This includes work done in an implementing NGO which works with the government at the state level in at least one state in any field: education, health, livelihood, WASH, ICDS system, PDS, agriculture, etc.
Experience in leading conversations with senior bureaucrats at the state level in at least one state for 2-3 years and strong understanding of how bureaucracy works in India
Ability to take a one line problem statement and come up with a proposed work structure to achieve the aim in a structured way
Ability to use data for decision making
Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail
Strong communication skills (written and verbal), with strong ability to empathise with others
Strong ability to mentor others and gauge the mentoring needs of fellow team members skills
Passionate about contributing to Fortify Health’s mission and impact; driven to improve nutrition at population scale through Fortify Health’s system-building
Highly organised, proactive, self-managing and conscientious
Systems mindset
Quick learner: able to quickly and effectively seek, absorb and process information for decision-making
Ability to manage pressure and stay calm
Flexible, enjoy a high task-volume (i.e. ability to manage a variety of tasks on your plate which require you to frequently switch context). Good at prioritising and managing time
Willing to travel up to 40% of their time
Team player with strong organisational values and cultural fit
Fluent in written and spoken English and Hindi
Based in Mumbai, Bhopal, Delhi, Ahmedabad or Bangalore
Right to work in India

Desirable attributes

Prior work or connections with PDS, Health department at state level with principal secretaries
A Masters or advanced degree in public health, economics, social work, etc.
Experience managing teams remotely/hybrid model
Excellent verbal communication skills in Gujarati and/or Marathi
Experience working in India or with teams based in India

Terms of employment: Contract for two years, renewal by mutual agreement

Next Steps

You can start the application process by entering your email address at the top right of this page. The application process will have the following steps:

You will answer some questions (estimated time: 2-3 hours). Your responses will go through our de-biased sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then scored by members of our team.
If shortlisted, we will invite you to complete a first round of interview (estimated time: 45 minutes).
After this, there will be an assessment stage, which includes a few tasks, including building a proposal in a slide deck (estimated time 6 hours). Based on the quality of work submitted, there will be one further round of interview.
In the second interview you will be requested to present your submitted deck followed by Q&A, as well as respond to some questions (estimated time: 1 hour).

Expected duration of this application process: 6-10 weeks

To apply for this job please visit app.beapplied.com.