Senior Manager, Impact Evaluation & MERL

SaveLIFE Foundation (SLF); New Delhi; On-site; INR 3,600,000 - 5,200,000; Full time

Job summary

SaveLIFE Foundation in India seeks a Senior Manager, Impact Evaluation & MERL to lead attribution studies, author donor reports, and own the Impact Measurement Framework. You will supervise a small team and report to the Director, Impact.

This builder role sits at the intersection of evaluation, road safety data, and government-facing evidence, requiring strong quantitative skills, rigorous writing, and engagement with academic partners.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Public Policy, Development Economics, Statistics, Epidemiology, Urban or Transportation Planning, Engineering, Public Health, Social Work, or closely related discipline.
• Minimum seven years of MERL, impact evaluation, or applied research experience, with leadership of an evaluation team.
• Experience designing quasi-experimental studies (DiD, synthetic control, RDD, ITS) and writing methodologies.
• Strong quantitative analytics and proficiency with Excel/Sheets; able to translate data into insights.

Responsibilities

• Own the design and execution of impact attribution studies (DiD, synthetic control, RDD, ITS).
• Own the production of methodology documentation suitable for academic sign-off.
• Co-own the Impact Measurement Framework, updated annually.
• Design monitoring frameworks for active programmes to support attribution analysis.
• Own data quality standards and verification protocols for the Impact function.

Skills

Strong quantitative skills

Analytical writing

Project leadership

Data governance

Education

Master's degree in Public Policy or related field

Tools

Stata

R

Python

Excel/Google Sheets

Job description

SaveLIFE Foundation is India's leading road safety systems reform organisation. We work at the intersection of policy, engineering, enforcement, trauma care, and data science to reduce road crash fatalities - not as a charitable project, but as a question of public health, governance, and equity.

Over the past 18 years, we have:

• Led the campaign behind India's Good Samaritan Law (2016) and contributed to the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act (2019)
• Reduced fatalities by 58% on the Mumbai–Pune Expressway, 65% on National Highway 48, and 45% on the Yamuna Expressway - validated by independent audit and adopted as a national highway safety standard by the Bureau of Indian Standards
• Designed and now scale the Zero Fatality Corridor (ZFC) and Zero Fatality District (ZFD) - proven governance models that India's states and the central government are embedding into their own road safety architecture
• Signed MoUs with the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, nine state governments, and four premier academic institutions (IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur, and AIIMS Rishikesh)
• Built data and AI platforms that are reviewed at Chief Minister and Union Ministry level to guide real-time road safety decisions

Our North Star: to halve India's road crash fatalities by 2030, in line with India's SDG 3.6 commitment.

About the role

The Senior Manager, Impact Evaluation & MERL is SLF's lead practitioner on impact attribution and knowledge production. Reporting to the Director, Impact, this role owns the analytical and written output of the Impact function, the Historical Impact Report, academic study documents, donor impact submissions, and the Impact Measurement Framework.

It is a builder's role: production, not delegation. The Director sets strategy; this role does the work. The position sits at the intersection of evaluation methodology, road safety data, and government-facing evidence.

Role and Responsibilities

Responsibilities are structured by ownership level. Each item is tagged as Own (lead and accountable), Co-own (shared accountability with the Director), or Support (contribute to a Director-led effort).

1. Impact Evaluation Design and Delivery

• Own the design and execution of SLF's impact attribution studies — including Difference-in-Difference (DiD), synthetic control, regression discontinuity, and interrupted time series methods. The method choice should follow the evidence question, not the other way around.
• Own the production of methodology documentation suitable for academic sign-off and peer review.
• Co-own the Impact Measurement Framework — SLF's formal document governing how impact is defined, measured, and reported across all programmes. Drafted by this role; approved annually by the Director and CEO.
• Co-own the design of monitoring frameworks for active programmes, ensuring field data is structured to support attribution analysis.
• Own data quality standards across the Impact function's outputs: verification protocols, cross-checks, and chain-of-custody discipline.

2. Knowledge Production and Reporting

• Own the lead authorship of SLF's Historical Impact Report — an 18-year legacy documentation, expected as a multi-month flagship project.
• Co-own the impact-evidence sections of all major donor submissions, in standing partnership with the Partnerships team. Final figure sign-off rests with this role.
• Own the design and production of the Systemic Impact Scorecard, a comprehensive inventory of SLF's policy, legislative, and judicial impact.
• Co-own SLF's publication pipeline, conference paper abstracts, journal submission outlines, and policy briefs, in collaboration with the Policy & Research team.
• Own high-quality analytical briefs, methodology notes, and progress summaries for the Director, CEO, and Board.

3. Academic and Research Partnerships

• Own the academic partnership pipeline below Director level — from introductory engagement through Scope of Work drafting and study design finalisation.
• Co-own SLF's substantive intellectual interface with academic partners (IITs, AIIMS, public health and policy research institutions). Working-level methodological engagement on study design, data requirements, counterfactual construction, and publication standards is led by this role; senior PI-level relationships are held by the Director.
• Support SLF's representation at academic and evaluation conferences — typically as paper presenter or panellist, contributing to SLF's salience as a methodologically credible road safety organisation.

4. Cross-Function Data Governance

• Co-own data governance for the Impact function: what data is collected, in what format, at what frequency, and for what analytical purpose.
• Support the Technology team in ensuring that SLF's analytics platform and video-AI data collection are configured to capture data in formats supporting evaluation-grade analysis.
• Co-own data-sharing protocols between the Impact function and the Policy & Research team.

5. Team Leadership and Capacity Building

• Own day-to-day supervision, direction, and professional development of two to three Impact team members.
• Own the MERL capacity building of SLF's programme team members — what data they collect, how, and why.
• Co-own a culture of impact-first, evidence-based decision-making across SLF.

Qualifications and Professional Experience

We expect a strong candidate to meet most, not necessarily all, of the essential criteria. The personal characteristics outlined at the top of this document weigh as heavily as the technical requirements.

• A Master's degree in Public Policy, Development Economics, Statistics, Epidemiology, Urban or Transportation Planning, Engineering, Public Health, Social Work, or a closely related discipline. Equivalent professional experience will be considered in lieu of the formal qualification.
• Minimum seven years of progressively responsible experience in monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL), impact evaluation, or applied research — with at least two years leading an evaluation team or function.
• Demonstrated experience designing or substantively contributing to quasi-experimental studies – difference-in-difference, regression discontinuity, synthetic control, interrupted time series, or equivalent. Ability to write a defensible methodology section independently is essential.
• Strong quantitative analytical skills: comfort with panel data, statistical inference, and the relationship between traffic exposure and fatality measurement. Working proficiency in Stata, R, or Python; high fluency in Excel / Google Sheets.
• Demonstrated analytical writing ability. A writing sample is required at the application stage (see How to Apply).
• Experience producing or substantively contributing to impact evidence for institutional donors or impact investors — results frameworks, impact reports, or due diligence documentation.
• Working fluency with AI tools (LLMs, statistical assistants) for analytical productivity, paired with the judgement to verify outputs and catch fabricated citations, miscalculations, and methodological errors.
• Experience in road safety, transport, public health, or infrastructure programmes in a low- or middle-income country context.
• Familiarity with India's road crash data infrastructure: eDAR (Electronic Detailed Accident Report), NETC toll data, MoRTH statistics, and NCRB data.
• Experience co-authoring a peer-reviewed journal submission or academic conference paper.
• Prior research collaboration with Indian academic institutions (IITs, public health schools, policy research organisations).
• Understanding of the Safe System approach to road safety and its application in quasi-experimental evaluation.

What You’ll Gain

• A unique platform to lead change at scale, with the ability to directly influence infrastructure and policy in India and beyond.
• The chance to work with India’s only organisation that combines system reform with on-ground action for road safety.
• Cross-sector exposure across engineering, governance, public health, and civic engagement.
• An entrepreneurial environment that values innovation, courage, and execution excellence.
• An opportunity to be part of a globally recognised movement saving thousands of lives each year.

SaveLIFE Foundation is for you if you

• Crave purpose in your work and want to solve real problems for real people.
• Thrive in a high-performance environment where outcomes matter.
• Are passionate about improving systems through technology and design.
• Want your work to matter—not just for your company, but for your country.

Personal Characteristics:

• Highly analytical, detail-orientated, and intellectually rigorous, with a strong commitment to evidence-based decision-making and methodological integrity.
• Strong ownership mindset with the ability to independently manage complex projects, collaborate across teams, and engage confidently with academic and research stakeholders.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to translate complex analysis into actionable insights while mentoring teams and driving a culture of impact-first thinking.