Job Opportunity for Partner Development & Success Manager at Wadhwani Foundation in Bengaluru

Position Name

Partner Development & Success Manager – WEN Think Startup

Role Type

Individual Contributor / Account management

Reporting into

Sunita Singh

Work Location

Bangalore. Willing to travel up to 20 – 25%

Department

WEN Think Startup

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.

Role Context: 

The Partner Development and Success Manager will own all activities related to launching and making the WEN program in the defined region or category of partners successful while working with the local partners and WF team members.

The role will be responsible for communicating and developing a strategic relationship with channel partners to create a well aligned and mutually successful partnership. By developing a significant understanding of our programs, a successful channel partner will educate and excite both existing and new partners through structured, clear, and thoughtful engagement.

This position requires close collaboration with the product, delivery, and marketing teams.

The role is responsible to drive the overall outreach, signups of partner and beneficiary, beneficiary sensitization and readiness for the program, and the actual success of the beneficiaries.

The incumbent will apply strong research, collaboration, network and management skills to identify and map the right WF and other partners with a deep interest in developing entrepreneurship programs on campus and in initiating and engaging the students in their earlier years in the WEN Think Startup program. The incumbent should be able to leverage existing WF partner campuses (Ignite program) for WEN Think Startup program.

Use defined deliverables and metrics, as well as develop operational metrics to measure and track product level, program level and partner level performance to enable higher effectiveness and efficiencies. They will identify growth and improvement opportunities, and continuously improve operations.

Key Responsibilities:

The Partner Development and Success Manager will be responsible for

–          Initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and closing all WEN Think Startup programs with partners and the entrepreneur community

–          Developing program value propositions for institutes, partners, and students

–          Creating awareness of WEN Think Startup in the academic ecosystem and onboarding students to the platform

–          Being the single point of contact between Wadhwani Foundation and its Channel Partners for all topics related to WEN Think Startup

–          Creating a process-driven approach to partner outreach and relationship management

–          Formulating marketing tactics with product, program, and channel partners to promote community platform events and content

–          Synthesizing insights from community interactions and addressing critical issues to relevant teams

–          Defining mechanisms and measuring success to ensure alignment and execution according to established KPIs

–          Increasing awareness, digital transformation, and future program design in collaboration with back office areas

–          Reviewing program data dashboard to monitor and evolve the overall program and value chain

–          Collaborating with senior management and program teammates to align internal goals with partner relationships

–          Negotiating and finalizing partnership agreements in accordance with the foundation’s contract guidelines and policies

–          Representing the brand and being partners’ liaison internally to deliver a great experience.

Skills & Experience:

·         A degree in Management from reputed B-schools / institutes

·         8-10 years of experience in roles such as leading projects or operations or business development in a for profit organization. Excellent oral and written English skills. Able to listen, understand and communicate effectively. Able to develop documents and other write-ups for communication on paper, via the web and other means. Ability to communicate effectively to a range of audiences including students, teachers, principals, entrepreneurs, government as well as industry personnel.

·         Self-starter, able to work independently, having a high need for achievement and a keen learner.

·         Preferred experience though not mandatory:  Working in Entrepreneurship/Start-up Ecosystem. Interfacing with higher educational institutes, start-up ecosystem players, and other entities.  Exposure to the education structures and systems. Experience setting up projects from scratch.

·         Strong analytical, conceptual, and strategic planning skills. Excellent interpersonal and supervisory skills. 

·         Energetic and Enthusiastic personality

·         Project Management: Strong program management skills. Ability to break up a complex deliverable into a project plan with realistic tasks. Ability to manage aggressive deadlines with ownership and required hard work to keep to deadlines. Experience using CRM tools

·         People/Team Skills: Highly presentable and pleasant. Confident and able to interface with academic leadership /senior faculty/Education Partners and government officials to derive results. High energy, exhibiting passion and drive for their work and able to rally other people around common goals.

·         Technology: Mastery of MS Office and e-learning tools – Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Power BI, e-learning platforms. Ease of use of internet for getting data and communicating over email. Any experience in Learning Management Systems/e-learning will be a plus.

·         Strong understanding of defining and using channel marketing approach/es.