Associate Director, Climate Resilience

NRDC India; New Delhi; On-site; INR 1,200,000 - 1,600,000; Full time

Job summary

NRDC India in New Delhi is looking for an Associate Director for Climate Resilience to lead initiatives and oversee operations. The ideal candidate will design cross-sector strategies to address climate impacts, particularly extreme heat, while mentoring a dedicated team.

With a background in climate adaptation and public health, the role involves collaboration with multiple stakeholders. The successful candidate should possess strong analytical and leadership skills, with a commitment to shaping policies for climate resilience.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in climate adaptation or resilience planning.
• 3-5 years supervisory experience is essential.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to manage multiple projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead initiatives in climate resilience and oversee daily operations.
• Design and implement strategies addressing heat resilience.
• Mentor and guide staff while fostering team cohesion.

Skills

Climate adaptation

Urban heat mitigation

Public health

Project management

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in relevant field

Master's degree in relevant field

Job description

NRDC India Private Limited is an independent organization based in New Delhi founded to build a healthier and more prosperous future for all Indians.

To attain a healthier and more prosperous future, NRDC India and its partners work with governments and stakeholders at all levels to deliver transformative solutions across the organization’s focus areas. The approach is to collaborate on pilot projects that offer the potential for tangible environmental and public health benefits. NRDC India undertakes strong proof of concept to bring solutions to scale at the state level – with the goal of informing national policies and unlocking the public investments needed to implement them.

NRDC India also partners alongside Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in the United States, a non‑profit environmental advocacy organization. NRDC was founded in 1970, and their people helped write some of America’s bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act and many of the implementing regulations. NRDC uses law, science, and the support of 3.1 million members to protect the planet’s wildlife and wild places and to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities. In India for over 10 years now, NRDC has been a thought leader and trusted adviser to the partners within the country to tackle climate change and implement energy solution. Since 2009, the India Initiative has combined scientific research and policy acumen to produce game‑changing results.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Associate Director, Climate Resilience will work in close collaboration with NRDC India’s Director of Programs and Director- Climate Resilience at NRDC to lead initiatives in climate resilience. This position is responsible for overseeing and managing the day‑to‑day operations of a dedicated Climate Resilience team. This role will design and implement cross‑sector strategies that strengthen resilience to rising temperatures, heat waves, and related climate impacts. Associate Director will lead research, policy development, partnership building, and program implementation to address extreme heat as a growing public health, infrastructure, economic, and equity challenge. The role also holds potential to grow the climate resilience program to other topics areas within climate resilience and adaptation.

The ideal candidate brings expertise in climate adaptation, urban heat mitigation, public health, and has experience leading complex initiatives across government, academia, community, and private‑sector stakeholders. Key responsibilities include mentoring and guiding staff, helping to shape policy in the climate resilience sector, working with national, state, and local partners within India and on an international platform. This role also requires strategic thinking and the ability to navigate complex and challenging environments, while also inspiring and motivating a diverse team to achieve their goals.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the following essential functions:

• Serve as the direct manager to the Climate Resilience team, consultants, and interns. Provide regular individual coaching, feedback, and development while fostering team cohesion.
• Support development of and lead execution of a comprehensive extreme heat resilience strategy aligned with organizational goals. Contribute to organizational leadership, strategic planning, and culture‑building efforts.
• Lead the design and implementation of programs addressing heat resilience, cooling access and integration of heat and cooling solutions.
• Guide the team on effective ways of translating climate science and heat risk data into actionable policy and programmatic recommendations.
• Guide and support the team to develop policy briefs, guidance documents, and resilience frameworks for local, regional, or national stakeholders.
• Manage a team responsible for the groundwork on developing and implementing strategies to advance work on climate resilience, including project management, stakeholder roundtables, policy development, technical research, analysis, and writing.
• Provide in-depth subject matter expertise on policy and technical research, analysis, writing on climate resilience in India and in the international context.
• Provide direct, on‑call, quick turnaround policy and technical assistance to our partners, participating in weekly calls, roundtables and site visits.
• Build and maintain partnerships with across stakeholder groups, particularly project specific partners.
• Represent the organization in coalitions, working groups, and public forums related to climate resilience.
• Communicate and liaison internally through daily communication by phone, email and in‑person to partners and colleagues internationally.
• International and domestic travel for meetings, conferences, and roundtables

The above list of duties is not comprehensive but generally demonstrates the types of matters under the position’s responsibility. Other duties may be assigned.

Requirements: Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in relevant field of study such as climate science, environmental policy, public health, urban planning, sustainability, or related field. Master’s degree in relevant field is a plus.
• 5+ years of previous work experience in climate adaptation, resilience planning, urban planning, disaster risk reduction, or other policy work in India
• 3-5 years of previous supervisory experience is required.
• Ability to take initiative, manage complex workloads and deliver outputs to agreed deadlines.
• Have a high level of drive and energy and a commitment to excellence.
• Demonstrated innovative problem solving and conflict resolution skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects spread across various geographies and interacting with multiple stakeholders.
• Knowledge of extreme heat risks, heat‑health impacts, climate induced disaster risks, nature based solutions and broader adaptation strategies.
• Forward‑looking, and strategic thinker with strong interpersonal and active listening skills.
• Team player with a proven ability to develop cross‑disciplinary strategies to advance NRDC India’s priorities and collaborate in a complex/matrixed organizational structure.
• Exceptional research, writing, communication, organization, and analytical skills
• Experience and demonstrated success working with city government along with a knowledge of the Indian political system, economic structures, and socio‑cultural landscape.
• Experience with public speaking on technical and non‑technical topics, with an ability to communicate with a wide variety of audiences.
• Ability to communicate methods, results and recommendations from complex qualitative and quantitative analysis to expert and non‑technical audiences.
• Demonstrated leadership experience and ability to forge strong working relationships as a people manager.
• Competence with and commitment to diversity and inclusion; ability to be an effective partner with diverse colleagues, leaders and partners.
• Excellent external representational skills with the aptitude to articulate effectively with senior stakeholders.
• Have excellent influencing and convincing abilities.
• Proficiency in English as well as one additional Indian language is preferred.
• Excellent interpersonal and presentation skills.

Travel

Willingness to travel as per requirement within India with occasional international travel.

Physical Demand

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to perform the essential functions of this position successfully. The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position within the described work environment.

Work is sometimes performed primarily in the office. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet in office settings and moderate in other situations. Hours of employment may sometimes require working flexible and/or longer hours, including nights and weekends, when necessitated by projects. The job includes work‑related situations such as those involving challenging, important, urgent, time‑sensitive, or multiple matters.

This job description is intended to provide guidelines for job expectations and the employee's ability to perform the position described. It is not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, skills, and abilities. Additional functions and requirements may be assigned by supervisors as deemed appropriate. This document does not represent a contract of employment, and NRDC India expressly reserves the right to change this position description and/or assign tasks for the employee to perform, as NRDC India may deem appropriate.