Manager-School Acquisition

upGrad; Mumbai; On-site; INR 3,000,000 - 5,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

None

Job summary

UpGrad Future Schools Consortium (UFSC) seeks a senior professional to lead acquisition and brand-conversion for K-12 schools in Phase 1 cities, starting with Mumbai and other major cities. You will manage long-term relationships with school owners, structure deals, and coordinate across Legal, Finance, and Transformation teams.

You will drive due diligence, align with UFSC's Roll-Up strategy, and deliver a scalable playbook for rapid expansion into Phase 2.

Qualifications

• A track record of closing relationship-led acquisitions or franchise conversions.
• Experience in education sector or institutional real estate is a strong advantage.
• Comfortable with multi-month trust-building and term-sheet negotiations.

Responsibilities

• Identify target independent K-12 schools in Phase 1 cities for Roll-Up.
• Build and maintain a pipeline of acquisition targets with local intermediaries.
• Lead negotiations from term sheet to final agreement with Legal and Finance.
• Coordinate due diligence across legal, financial, and academic facets.
• Plan post-acquisition brand conversion with Transformation team.

Skills

Relationship-led engagements

Deal sourcing & pipeline building

Negotiation & term sheets

Due diligence coordination

Stakeholder management

Market mapping

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA/Finance preferred

Tools

Legal drafting

Financial modelling

Job description

UpGrad Future Schools Consortium (UFSC) is the K-12 school-building arm of UpGrad,

India's largest online higher-education platform. UFSC is building 45 schools over five

years, structured across three phases: Phase 1 covers the first 10 schools; Phase 2 scales

the network to 30 schools; and Phase 3 takes the Consortium to its full scale of 45 schools.

Schools, and Roll-Up.

UpGrad is a well-recognised name in online higher education and skilling. In the K-12

school space, UFSC is starting from zero. There is no brand awareness, no parent

community, and no track record to point to. The Roll-Up format is how UFSC compresses

years of trust-building into a single transaction — bringing established, well-regarded

independent schools into the UFSC network, complete with their enrolled students, their

reputation, and their local trust. The Manager — School Acquisition & Brand Conversion is

the person who finds those schools and brings them home.

THE ROLE

This is an acquisition and conversion role, not a greenfield development role. UFSC's Roll-

Up format is built on a simple insight: building trust with a city's premium families from zero

takes years, but an established, well-run independent school already has that trust.

Acquiring or converting the right school compresses UFSC's market-entry timeline from

years to months.

This person must be equally strong at two things that rarely sit in one skill set: the

relationship-led, consultative process of engaging a school owner or promoter over months,

and the commercial rigour of structuring, valuing, and closing a transaction. The

relationship work earns the trust that makes an owner consider selling or converting their

life's work. The commercial work turns that trust into a signed, bankable deal.

This person owns every touchpoint of the acquisition journey, from the first conversation

with a school promoter to the signed agreement to the handover to the Transformation

team. They will build the Roll-Up pipeline from the ground up, working closely with Legal,

Finance, and the Managing Director on deal structuring and approval.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

1. Target Identification and Market Mapping

• – Identify well-performing independent K-12 schools in Phase 1 cities (Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad) that fit the Roll-Up acquisition profile: strong local reputation, healthy enrolment, sound infrastructure, and a credible academic track record.
• – Build and maintain a structured database of prospective target schools through market intelligence, local education consultants, brokers, and referrals.

2. Owner and Promoter Relationship Building

• – Initiate and build long-term, trust-based relationships with school owners, trustees, and promoters — recognising that this is a multi-month, consultative process, not a transactional sale.
• – Understand each owner's underlying motivation — succession, retirement, capital needs, or growth ambition — and tailor UFSC's proposition accordingly.
• – Represent UFSC's value proposition credibly: academic support, operational systems, UpGrad's institutional backing, and a growth path the school could not achieve independently.
• – Handle sensitive, high-stakes conversations with the discretion the situation demands — for the owner, a school acquisition is rarely just a transaction.

3. Commercial Structuring and Negotiation

• – Evaluate each target school's financials, enrolment trends, fee structure, infrastructure condition, and liabilities to arrive at a fair valuation and deal structure.
• – Structure deal options appropriate to the owner's preference and UFSC's return thresholds: outright acquisition, majority stake, brand-license/conversion, or management takeover.
• – Lead commercial negotiations from term sheet through to final agreement, in coordination with Legal and Finance.
• – Present deal recommendations and investment cases to the Managing Director and investment committee for approval.
• – Coordinate financial, legal, and academic due diligence: enrolment and fee-collection data, statutory compliance, board affiliation status, land/property title, and any pending litigation.
• – Work with legal counsel to draft and finalise term sheets, MOUs, and definitive transaction or brand-conversion agreements.
• – Flag diligence red flags early and elevate decisions that materially affect deal viability.

5. Transition and Brand Conversion Planning

• – Plan the post-acquisition brand transition in coordination with the Transformation team: signage, curriculum alignment, staff onboarding, and parent communication.
• – Manage sensitive stakeholder communication through the transition — retaining existing staff and reassuring the parent community that continuity, not disruption, is the plan.
• – Hand over each closed acquisition to the Transformation team with a complete transition brief.

6. Pipeline and Reporting

• – d. diligence, closure) and report progress to the Managing Director.
• – Track conversion velocity, deal economics, and market coverage across Phase 1 cities.
• – Document the acquisition playbook so it can scale cleanly into Phase 2's additional Roll-Up targets.

WHO YOU ARE

• – Eight to fifteen years of experience in business development, M&A, or real estate/franchise acquisition, with a demonstrable track record of closing relationship-led, consultative transactions — not high-volume transactional sales.
• – Experience in the education sector, institutional real estate, or franchise acquisition is a strong advantage; direct K-12 school acquisition experience is a plus but not essential if the deal-closing track record is strong.
• – You are equally comfortable in a multi-month trust-building conversation with a school founder and in a term sheet negotiation with their lawyer. You do not rush the relationship, and you do not go soft in the negotiation.
• – You understand land, property, and business valuation well enough to sanity-check a consultant's numbers yourself, and you know what a fair, closeable deal structure looks like.
• – You have a working understanding of due diligence — legal, financial, and academic — and you know which red flags are dealbreakers and which are negotiable.
• – You are discreet and emotionally intelligent. For the owner on the other side of the table, this is often the sale of their life's work, and you approach it with the seriousness that deserves.
• – You have an existing network — or the ability to build one quickly — among school owners, education consultants, brokers, and local intermediaries in Phase 1 cities.
• – You are comfortable in a startup environment, building a pipeline and a playbook from scratch, with limited team support in Phase 1.

Skills and Knowledge

Technical and Functional Skills

• – Business development and deal sourcing: ability to build a structured pipeline of acquisition targets from scratch, using market intelligence, local networks, and referrals.
• – Relationship-led / consultative sales: skilled at building long-term trust with a sophisticated, emotionally invested counterparty over a multi-month engagement.
• – Valuation and deal structuring: working knowledge of business and real estate valuation methods, and the ability to structure acquisition, majority-stake, or brand-
• – Negotiation: able to lead commercial negotiations from term sheet to final agreement, balancing firmness on economics with sensitivity to the owner's position.
• – Due diligence management: able to coordinate legal, financial, and academic diligence, and to identify and elevate material risks.
• – Stakeholder and transition management: able to manage sensitive staff and parent communication through an ownership transition.

Leadership and Behavioural Skills

• – Discretion and emotional intelligence: handles sensitive, high-stakes ownership conversations with the seriousness and confidentiality they require.
• – Commercial rigour: does not let relationship-building soften commercial judgement; protects UFSC's investment thresholds while remaining fair to the owner.
• – Startup mindset: builds a pipeline, a playbook, and a network from zero, without waiting for a large team or established processes.
• – Cross-functional coordination: works closely and clearly with Legal, Finance, the Transformation team, and the Managing Director through each deal stage.

Domain Knowledge

• – Understanding of the independent K-12 school ownership landscape in Indian Tier 1 cities — trust and society structures, succession patterns, and common reasons owners consider selling or converting.
• – Familiarity with school affiliation boards (CBSE, ICSE, IB, State Boards) and the regulatory considerations relevant to ownership transitions.
• – Understanding of how UFSC's Roll-Up format fits alongside its Boutique Greenfield, Tier 1 Greenfield, and Micro School formats, and when acquisition is the right entry strategy for a given city or opportunity.

Qualification

• – Bachelor's degree required; MBA or postgraduate qualification in Business Administration, Finance, or a related field is preferred.
• – Candidates with an outstanding track record of closing relationship-led acquisitions or franchise conversions in any sector will be considered regardless of formal qualification.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE AT 12 MONTHS

Success is a Roll-Up pipeline that is signing real schools — not just meetings and term sheets — and a playbook that makes the next acquisition faster than the last.

• – The Phase 1 Roll-Up acquisition target is met, with each deal handed over to the Transformation team backed by a complete transition brief.
• – A structured, stage-wise pipeline of qualified acquisition targets is active across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, with clear visibility for the Managing Director.
• – A documented acquisition and due-diligence playbook — valuation approach, deal structures, diligence checklist, transition process — is ready to scale into Phase 2.
• – Established, trust-based relationships are in place with education consultants, brokers, and local intermediaries in each Phase 1 city.
• – All closed deals are contracted cleanly, with no material diligence issues surfaced post-close.

WHAT THIS ROLE OFFERS

• – The opportunity to build UFSC's Roll-Up acquisition function from zero, with real
• – A role with genuine deal-making autonomy, working closely with the Managing Director
• – The institutional credibility and financial backing of UpGrad, India's largest edtech platform, combined with the pace and ownership of building a new venture.