Website Swaniti Initative

About Us:

Swaniti Initiative aims to build sustainable communities by strengthening public service delivery at the state and local levels. We work with community leaders, policymakers, and administrators with the intent to ensure effective last-mile delivery. Our program interventions have included embedding professionals at a hyperlocal local, leveraging data for problem and solution orientation, and using data for monitoring and oversight. We believe that strengthening the delivery of public services will enable a level playing field for the most vulnerable. Swaniti operates in India, US, South east Asia and Africa. We serve as advisors to multiple local and state governments in program and policy design. Our areas of focus include energy transition, inclusive planning and livelihood creation. We have a decentralized presence of 200+ people globally.

About the position:

Over the past five years, Swaniti team has seen growth in our geographic presence and impact. In the upcoming years we plan to streamline our model further and put in place well-structured monitoring systems we are looking for leadership who can support us in getting to that level. Swaniti’s current project portfolio extends to states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Telangana amongst others. Accordingly, Swaniti is actively looking for senior managers who have established experience in the governance and sustainability space and can work with a program team to design specific interventions, operationalize the intervention and work with the MEL team to put in place indicators.

Technical knowledge in areas of just transition and net zero will be given preference since several projects within Swaniti focus in these areas and we intend to grow our global work in this space as well. Given Swaniti’s decentralized model and focus on team work, we are looking at professionals who have exceptional experience in managing teams and have a successful history in ensuring apt reporting and problem resolution. The next five years of Swaniti will be about continued growth on a global scale as we sought out more partners and programs. We are looking for a senior professional who can help us in this journey.

Leadership and Execution:

The Vice President of operations will have the vision to detail out existing program outline into a tangible work plan that can be distributed amongst team members.

The Vice President of operations will work with the MEL team to come up with specific program indicators and ways for the operations team to measure the same.

The Vice President of operations will have the vision and direction to recognize how to work with external stakeholders including:

o Communicating program details frequently

o Consulting them about program structure

o Organizing outreach events as and when required

Team Management and Reporting:

The Vice President of operations must have established success in working with teams of 3-7 people and managing their:

o Work plans and providing directions

o Monitoring them on a regular basis and ensure appropriate reporting

o Working with the MEL team and internal team members on reporting programs

The Vice President of operations will manage the day-to-day operations of the team and represent the team at the relevant policy review meetings at different levels of the government in coordination with relevant stakeholders.

Stakeholder Management and Relationship Building:

The Vice President of operations will build and maintain effective relationships with strategic authorities at the state headquarters like the secretaries of the departments, commissioners of the allied departments, directors, and project officers at the divisional and district level.

The Vice President of operations will be required to take the initiative to reach out to other new prospective partner organizations and establish partnerships.

The Vice President of operations will initiate and participate in cross-vertical collaboration opportunities across the various departments within and outside Swaniti.

Requirements

Qualifications:

Between 10 – 15 years of work experience in Government, Climate-related CSOs, think tanks or foundations, Academic Institutes.
Minimum of Master’s in Climate or sustainability related field.
Established background in managing large teams (i.e. candidate must have direct reportees and during interview rounds establish experiences from the same)
Established background in designing programs and operationalizing them through work plans etc.
Worked closely with Monitoring and Evaluation systems, including reporting on key metrics and (where appropriate) designing MEL for team members.

Skills and Attributes Required: