Job Opportunity for Project Lead, Impact Operations at The Convergence Foundation in Delhi

About The Convergence Foundation

Ashish Dhawan is one of India’s leading philanthropists. He founded and ran one of India’s first private equity funds, ChrysCapital, and in the last decade has helped build successful institutions (for e.g., Ashoka University) and strategic foundations (for e.g., Central Square Foundation, which works on school education reform). More recently, these include organizations that are working on building a better understanding between India and East Asia, improving the performance of the public sector, solving the air pollution crisis, and improving the pipeline of leadership and talent in the social sector.

We have set up The Convergence Foundation to do this in an institutionalized manner – identify critical voids in the social sector and build strong, long-lasting organizations to solve complex problems.

In order to ensure that our organizations reach their maximum potential, The Convergence Foundation will work closely with each of the organizations and provide strategic support in a variety of ways: developing deep connections with the broader ecosystem (including the government, donors, and others influencers), recruiting best-in-class talent, establishing robust impact and outcome measurement processes and capacity, building a strong brand and network of champions, initiating cross-learning between organizations, and building fundraising capacity.

We aim to build 20+ new foundations in the next 15 years that will create impact at scale in the sectors they operate in. We are looking for smart, entrepreneurial, and mission driven people to join us on this journey.

Our Current Portfolio

• Ashoka University (est. 2010)
• Central Square Foundation (est. 2012)
• Air Pollution Action Group (est. 2019)
• India Leaders for Social Sector (est. 2017)
• Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (est. 2019)
• ACT EdTech Ambition Fund (est. 2020)
• Accelerate Indian Philanthropy (est. 2021)
• Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology (est. 2021)
• Circle In (est. 2022)
• Foundation for Economic Development (est. 2022)
• ChangeINKK (est. 2022)
• Sports and Society Accelerator (est.2022)
• The Infravision Foundation (est. 2022)

Position Summary

We are looking to hire an exceptional Senior Program Manager (SPM) or Team Lead (TL) to lead the Outcome/Impact Measurement practice which will work with the portfolio of organizations to design and implement robust impact and outcome measurement against strategic goals.

This is a great opportunity for those who enjoy working in a start-up environment, enjoy building and scaling organizations, and care deeply about the impact sector. This role includes working with senior stakeholders and engaging with them on strategic projects that have the potential to solve key development challenges.

Key responsibilities

• Developing the right framework: There are a variety of program approach and intervention models across the portfolio of TCF organizations. From an M&E standpoint, this means that we require outcome measurement frameworks that are designed specifically for each organization. You would need to work with TCF and org leadership to develop these based on an in-depth understanding of the planned outcomes of each program, with a focus on impact & outcomes tracking.
• Data gathering process: You will be responsible for ensuring that the appropriate data is gathered correctly and in a timely manner. This would be based on the framework you design. To gather the data, you would need to work closely with the M&E team of each portfolio organization. In addition, we expect that you may also need to engage the services of 3rd party organizations.
• Codification of best practices/learnings: The impact/outcome measurement team at TCF aims to establish a centre of excellence that can share and demonstrate best practice outcome measurement across the portfolio. In order to achieve this, you will need to on-board a panel of experts and codify their learnings/approaches which can be shared and rolled out across the portfolio.
• Managing partnerships: You would be expected to play a key role in enabling the partnerships required to enable organizations to deliver against the outcome measurement frameworks. The partner network needs to be high quality and cost effective for the portfolio organizations to leverage
• Fostering/Building an impact/outcome driven culture across the TCF portfolio organizations: It is proven that data and measurement used appropriately can be a key lever in driving decision making and strategy. You would play a pivotal role in helping to develop and/or strengthen a behavioral mindset across organizations that emphasizes and prioritizes measurement, data analysis and evaluation. You will also need to facilitate ongoing learning and adapting of best practices in processes, tools and expertise across organizations.

You will report to the Associate Director – Strategy. To begin with we do not expect you to have any direct reports; we will build your team as the work expands.

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities

• Bachelor’s degree (Master’s degree or equivalent preferred) in economics, public policy, social science or related fields from a reputed institution
• 6+ years of work experience in a challenging/ high growth environment India with a research organization (research agency/ think-tank (government or private sector) preferred
• Prior experience managing/ leading M&E/Outcome/impact evaluation in a leading non-profit (or similar experience) is a must
• Excellent problem-solving and strategic thinking skills, strong research aptitude ability to analyze complex quantitative and qualitative data and formulate solutions
• Strong planning and organizational skills, and an ability to be able to set priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines with high attention to detail and accuracy.
• Fluency in English and excellent writing and communication skills (ability to communicate complex ideas in a meaningful way and across different audiences) within and outside the organization. Ability to be clear, concise and analytic in style
• Ability to think creatively, willing to take risks to experiment with new ideas and the ability to turn ideas into action
• High ability to collaborate and actively listen to others, understanding and valuing others’ views
• Operating style suited to working independently and in a small- organization setting, with the ability to be flexible, shift priorities quickly and as organizational demands require and where teamwork and resourcefulness are highly valued

Compensation

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social sector pay scales and will depend on the candidate’s experience levels

Location

New Delhi, India