Principal Lead, Implementation

Room To Read; India; Remote; INR 4,000,000 - 6,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Room to Read in India seeks a Principal Lead, Implementation to guide multi-state operations across Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana. The role reports to the Program Operations Director and coordinates with Country and Global Offices to ensure timely, compliant program delivery and strategic execution.

You will travel to field locations, engage government partners, and build leadership capacity within state teams, ensuring alignment with annual plans, budgets and donor commitments.

Qualifications

• Master's in management/education/related field required.
• 12+ years of relevant experience in project management across multiple states.
• Strong data analysis skills for program evaluation.
• Strong financial management expertise including budgeting and cash forecasting.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic and operational leadership across multiple states.
• Coordinate with Country Office and Global Office to resolve issues.
• Travel to field locations and engage government officials, partners, and teachers.
• Ensure state operations align with strategy, compliance, and annual plans.
• Lead monthly Operations calls and review state performance against plans.
• Support resource mobilisation and donor engagement through costing and narratives.

Skills

Program management

Data analysis

Financial management

Leadership

Education

Master's in management/education/related field

Job description

Job Summary

Position Overview: The Principal Lead, Implementation, is a member of Operations team at the regional level. This position will report directly to the Program Operations Director (POD). The Principal Lead provide strategic and operational leadership across Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Telangana, reporting to the Program Operations Director and supervising State Heads to deliver approved program and operational priorities. The Principal Lead will lead cross-functional coordination with Country Office and Global Office teams to resolve operational issues and support timely implementation. This position regular travel to field locations and engagement with government officials, partners, school leaders, and teachers. The role will serve as a key bridge between national leadership, state teams, program functions, government stakeholders, donors, and implementation partners, ensuring that state operations are aligned with organizational strategy, program priorities, compliance requirements, and annual business plans.

Important: All applicants must be legally eligible to work in the country where the position is located. Room to Read is not able to provide sponsorship.

Responsibilities

Multi-State Strategic and Operational Leadership: Program Quality -Delivery - Reporting (60%)

• Ensure both programs Literacy and Girls Education GEP) achieve their respective goals across states with high-quality implementation of Literacy, Girls Education, Library, FLN and other relevant programs across assigned states.
• Identify cross-state trends, operational bottlenecks, emerging risks, and opportunities for scale.
• Ensure that programs are implemented in accordance with approved program designs and implementation calendars, with timely action on significant deviations.
• Work closely with technical/program teams (IDTS) to maintain program quality, fidelity, and alignment with evidence-based approaches and organizational standards.
• Conduct program field visits to project locations each month across both programs and work with teams to ensure the program is delivered as per the program design.
• Promote cross-state learning, innovation, and replication of successful practices.
• Partner with HR and State Heads to strengthen workforce capacity, leadership continuity, and organizational readiness across assigned states.
• Ensure that state teams can implement the program promptly with minimal deviations.
• Coordinate with RM&E to interpret Literacy and Girls Education data, identify implementation risks and deviations, and recommend process improvements.
• Help develop systems to keep records of all state-level partnerships and do follow-ups for the timely renewal of the partnership documents (agreements/MoUs).
• Establish regular communication channels with all departments to facilitate effective coordination and implementation.
• Collaborate with state heads, conducting monthly Operations calls for streamlined coordination and communication.
• Review state performance against annual plans, budgets, KPIs, program outcomes, and organizational priorities.
• Lead multi-state performance reviews and ensure agreed corrective actions are implemented. Review state budgets, resource requirements, staffing structures, and operational assumptions.
• Monitor budget utilization and identify significant variances and corrective actions.
• Ensure efficient deployment of human and financial resources across states.
• Support resource mobilisation and donor engagement through accurate program costing, operational inputs, and strategic narratives.
• Collect, collate CO and GO level reports (Monthly and quarterly) from allocated states and review; collaborate with RM&E team for final reporting.

Government & External Stakeholder Management (20%)

• Build and maintain high-level relationships with State Governments, Education Departments, SCERTs, Samagra Shiksha, district administrations, and other relevant government institutions.
• Support State Leads in developing and strengthening strategic government relationships and stakeholder engagement. Represent Room to Read in high-level government meetings, consultations, reviews, and strategic forums as required.
• Lead negotiations and strategic discussions related to MoUs, program expansion, renewals, government approvals, policy alignment, and institutional partnerships.
• Anticipate changes in government priorities and lead appropriate operational responses. Strengthen RtR s positioning as a credible, evidence-based and non-partisan development partner.

Financial Management, Tracking Financial Utilization across states (10%):

• Ensure timely and accurate submission of internal trackers every month to the Finance team.

• Proactively monitor the financial and operational performance of assigned projects and ensure timely escalation of material variances and risks. Ensure timely and accurate submission of the Cash Forecast every month to the Finance team.

• Timely and accurate submission to any financial queries by Country and Global Office.

• Keep track of Annual Budgets submitted to the Global Office.

Central Operations role (10%)

• Communicate and correspond with GO counterparts to seek highlight issues and seek clarification on various aspects of operations in the country.

• Lead and provide strategic direction for the Annual Planning & Budgeting (AP&B) process across assigned states. Proactively participate in the annual planning and budgeting exercise and ensure timely submission of key documents for the same.

• Ensure any Global Office queries (related to program, budgets) are responded to on time.

• Second line to the POD and represent POD in various meetings as and when required.

• Build a high-performance culture based on accountability, collaboration, ownership, learning, and results.

• Establish clear expectations for state leadership roles and strengthen managerial effectiveness.

• Conduct regular performance reviews and provide strategic feedback and coaching

• Identify leadership and succession needs across states.

• Build second-line leadership capacity to ensure continuity and organizational resilience.

• Monitor risks related to government relationships, MoUs, staffing, finances, safeguarding, program continuity, compliance, reputation, and external environment.

• Ensure timely escalation of critical risks to senior leadership.

• Institutionalize data-driven decision-making across state operations

• Represent Room to Read at relevant government, development-sector, education, and sectoral forums.

• Perform other duties as assigned by POD.

• Participate in any other activities which may be required to be undertaken to fulfil the objectives of the organization.

Qualifications

Required:

• Master's in management/ education / related field.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience. Should have a strong background in project management, encompassing planning, monitoring, and evaluating programs at all levels across multiple states, preferably education projects.
• Possess strong data analysis skills for both programs.
• Possess strong financial management expertise, including annual planning, budgeting, budget outlook, cash forecasting, and the