Consultant - Associate Lead Partnerships - Karnataka

Dream A Dream; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Dream a Dream seeks a Consultant Associate Lead Partnerships for Karnataka to anchor youth life skills and SEL work within state systems. You will work across government bodies, educators, and policymakers to embed practices, ensure ownership, and sustain impact within existing structures.

You will nurture reflective spaces, translate ground insights into scalable processes, and guide a small team through ambiguity with clarity and trust.

Qualifications

• Education in Public Policy, Social Sciences, Education or related fields.
• 5+ years in leadership roles within education or non-profit sectors.
• Proven track record with government bodies and education stakeholders.
• Fluent in English and Kannada; additional regional languages advantageous.

Responsibilities

• System integration within existing government structures and timely follow-up.
• Maintain high-trust relationships with state and institutional stakeholders.
• Create experiential learning opportunities for educators and policymakers.
• Capture qualitative insights to inform planning and decision-making.
• Provide stability and direction to the South Hub Karnataka team.
• Travel across Karnataka as required.

Education

Public Policy

Social Sciences

Education or related fields

Tools

Canva

Microsoft Office

Adobe tools

Job description

Role

Role: Consultant Associate Lead Partnerships Karnataka
Reporting Manager: State Lead
Type: Full-time Consultant
Location: Bangalore

Role Summary

As the Consultant Associate Lead Partnerships in Dream a Dream s South Hub you will anchor Dream a Dream s work within the state by focusing on how life skills and social-emotional learning move from isolated experiences to embedded system practices. This role is not centred on expanding programs, but on deepening how the system understands, relates to, and sustains the idea of thriving within its existing structures. The State Lead works closely with institutions such as SSK, SSA, DSERT, DIETs, WCD, and school ecosystems to ensure that practices are contextual, owned by stakeholders, and integrated into everyday routines rather than remaining dependent on external facilitation. A key aspect of this role is the ability to hold relationships across multiple levels of the system, policymakers, administrators, educators, and ecosystem partners, and support them in moving from participation to ownership. This includes enabling reflective spaces, strengthening follow-through, and ensuring that ideas travel across layers of the system with clarity and coherence. At the same time, the role carries responsibility for holding the internal team with stability and direction, especially in contexts of ambiguity. This involves creating a culture of trust, reflection, and shared ownership, where team members feel supported while being able to contribute meaningfully to the system work. This is a deeply relational and systems-oriented role, requiring patience, clarity of intent, and the ability to translate insights from the ground into structures, practices, and narratives that can sustain over time.

Key Responsibilities

• System integration and continuity: Enable integration of life skills and SEL practices within existing government structures (DSERT, SSK, SSA, DIETs, schools, WCD and departments). Strengthen follow-up mechanisms, routines, and processes that allow practices to sustain beyond individual engagements. Support stakeholders in understanding and reflecting on their own practices. Support stakeholders in moving from experiencing facilitation to independently holding and adapting practices. Identify leverage points within the system.
• Stakeholder relationship and system alignment: Build and sustain high-trust relationships with state, district, and institutional stakeholders. Engage stakeholders through dialogue, reflection, and co-creation rather than directive implementation. Navigate system complexity, leadership transitions, and evolving priorities with steadiness and clarity. Support alignment across different levels of the system to ensure coherence in intent and action. Create experiential learning opportunities for educators, DIET faculty, administrators, and policymakers. Support integration of SEL and life skills through existing platforms and initiatives within the system.
• Narrative and ecosystem engagement: Build and strengthen a contextual narrative around thriving within Karnataka education ecosystem with the support of your team. Use field insights and evidence to build credible narratives and case studies that reflect on-ground shifts and learning. Capture and amplify voices from the ground: educators, young people, and system actors. Create platforms and spaces that enable shared reflection and dialogue across stakeholders. Contribute to shaping how the ecosystem understands and engages with life skills and SEL.
• Insight building and decision-making: Capture qualitative insights from field engagements, system conversations, and team reflections through MEL processes. Synthesize patterns from observations to inform planning and decision-making. Translate insights into actionable decisions, processes, and improvements. Develop grounded and adaptable ways to understand whether practices are being adopted and sustained. Use MEL processes to build shared understanding within the team, ensuring alignment on observations, learning, and evolving direction of the work. Use evidence to guide strategic choices.
• Team leadership and culture: Provide stability, clarity, and direction to the South Hub Karnataka team. Create regular spaces for reflection, alignment, and learning within the team. Foster a culture of trust, dignity, and inclusion. Support team members in building facilitation depth, system understanding, and ownership.
• General responsibilities: Contribute to South Hub strategy and cross-state learning. Collaborate with other internal teams. Uphold Dream a Dream s values of equity, dignity, and inclusion. Travel across Karnataka as required.

Skills required for the role

• Systems thinking
• Facilitation of reflective spaces across different stakeholders
• Ability to build and sustain trust with government stakeholders across levels
• Strong writing and documentation skills
• Understanding of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) as a tool for sensemaking
• Able to identify simple indicators of change (mindset, behavior, ownership)
• Able to capture qualitative insights and synthesize patterns
• Ability to translate observations into clear processes, follow-ups, and routines
• Strong planning and follow-through; able to manage multiple workstreams with clarity

Qualifications for the role

• Education in Public Policy, Social Sciences, Education or related fields.
• At least 5 years in leadership roles within education or non-profit sectors, focusing on complex program management and strategic partnerships.
• Proven track record of collaboration with government bodies and education stakeholders.
• Fluent in English and Kannada; additional regional language skills are advantageous.
• Experience in educational policy, SEL, or life skills programs is desirable.
• Comfort with Canva or Adobe tools is an added advantage.
• Comfort with MS Office tools and willingness to learn simple data tracking/reporting tools.

You will thrive in this role if you:

• Deeply reflective and believe in transformation over transaction.
• Understand government systems, systems change and can navigate power with empathy and invitation.
• Balancing structure with fluidity and plans with emergence.
• Passionate about building long-term public systems capability.
• Enjoy holding vision, complexity, nuance, and conflict as part of change work.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.