Sr. Director- Program and Impact

Leadership For Equity; Pune District; On-site; INR 3,600,000 - 4,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Leadership For Equity (LFE) is a Pune-based non-profit partnering with state and district governments to strengthen India's public education system. This role is the executive owner of LFE's whole program continuum: strategy, design, delivery, and impact, ensuring our work shows real change in teacher practice and children's learning for government and donor stakeholders.

Location: Pune, Maharashtra. Compensation ranges from 36-40 lakh INR per annum CTC.

Qualifications

• 18+ years of experience leading large-scale, multi-site programs in complex stakeholder environments.
• Demonstrated ownership of evidence-backed program design and a theory of change.
• Excellent written and spoken English; ability to engage with government and donors.

Responsibilities

• Own the program strategy, design, delivery, and impact across every workstream.
• Lead reporting to CEO/Co-Founder and manage a distributed, multi-level team.
• Represent LFE with government, donors, and the wider sector nationally and internationally.

Skills

Theory of change

MEL

Program design

Leadership

Education

Master's in Education

Job description

LFE is a Pune-based non-profit working with state and district governments in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and other states, to strengthen India's public education system. We do not run schools. We build the capacity of the system that does. through teachers and academic leaders.

Our programs span Foundational Learning (Grades 1-5, adoption of proven FLN pedagogies) and Future Learning (middle and secondary, computational thinking and 21st-century competencies). We work through three levers: co-creating curricular resources and teacher capacity, developing academic leadership that coaches and mentors teachers, and providing data-driven advisory to government.

Approach

LFE's systems-change approach focuses on improving classroom practice and enabling government ownership through three core levers:

• Co-creating high-quality curricular resources and building teacher capacity


• Developing academic leadership to coach and mentor teachers


• Providing data-driven advisory support and policy implementation guidance

Our model empowers teachers as instructional leaders and embeds long-term support through government-run mentor cadres, continuous classroom observation cycles, and in-system academic structures. Technology plays a critical role, including an in-house Classroom Observation App for real-time monitoring and a WhatsApp-based teacher support chatbot for contextual resource delivery.

The approach is iterative and context-responsive, grounded in classroom realities and tailored to state and district needs. Implementation varies across geographies, whether working directly with teachers or through government-appointed mentors, ensuring relevance and feasibility within existing structures. A continuous feedback loop of training, observation, and coaching moves beyond one-time interventions toward sustained practice change. All programs are co-designed and co-implemented with government partners to ensure scale, sustainability, and systemic ownership, ultimately leading to improved student learning outcomes in foundational and future literacy.

Roles and Responsibilities

This role is the executive owner of LFE's whole program continuum: strategy. design, delivery, and impact. You will hold the programmatic and evidence narrative across every workstream, and make sure our work shows up as real change in teacher practice and children's learning government and donor stakeholders.

Reporting and Team Leadership

• Reports to: CEO / Co-Founder


• Direct reports (indicative): Program Directors/State Leads, Head of MEL/Impact, Program Design, Content and Curriculum Lead(s)


• Team scale: Leads a distributed, multi-level team spanning central program design and state/district implementation units.

What we are weighting most

Four signals matter more to us than any single line on a CV. Please read these first.

An instinct for theory of change and MEL, not a textbook grasp of it : You have originated or substantially reshaped a theory of change or a program design because field evidence told you to, not executed one handed to you. Thinking in terms of innovative solutions, evidence generation and measurement comes naturally to you.

Coaching and mentoring as a default mode : You build capability in others by modelling and example, rather than directing or delegating through authority and designation. The people who have worked with you got better at their craft with your active support.

Wired for "figure it out and do it" : LFE is young and still building its systems. This is an enterprising, hands-on culture, and it rewards people who go and solve the thing themselves rather than working through seniority and a delegate-first instinct.

Academic and design rigor that complements our operational strength : Our Directors are already operationally strong. What we need is someone who can articulate and tie together the programmatic and evidence narrative across every workstream, not another senior operations hire.

Where the time goes

Program strategy & design (35%)

• Set and evolve program strategy across Foundational and Future Learning, anchored to LFE's theory of change.


• Turn research and field insight into feasible program models that account for field constraints, along with implementation playbooks and a scalable delivery architecture.


• Identify where to deepen and where to scale (new districts, new states, model blocks, proof points), and shape the programmatic case in proposals.

Monitoring, evaluation & impact (15%)

• Own the outcome metrics and measurement design across programs: what counts as impact, how it is measured, and what good looks like.


• Work with the Head of MEL & Impact to refine and finalize indicators, dashboards, learning loops, and evaluation plans.


• Drive course-correction from evidence, and make impact reporting to government, donors, and the board credible on both results and implementation learning.


• Oversee implementation across states, protecting fidelity to design while allowing structured adaptation to local context.

Delivery & operational excellence (20%)

• Hold the management spine, planning, review cadences, risk. fund utilization, MoU and donor commitments.


• Keep content, training, mentoring, field operations, and measurement moving as one engine.


• Coach and grow a distributed, values-aligned program team with high accountability.


• Build second-line leadership through clear roles, decision rights, and succession.


• Make reflecting and diagnosing from field and MEL evidence a routine team.


• Author or steward programmatic knowledge products: case studies, design notes, learning briefs.


• Own the program design and strategy sections of new program and grant proposals.


• Represent LFE with government, donors, and the wider sector, nationally and internationally.

What You Bring:

• 18+ years of experience, including 6-8 leading large-scale, multi-site or multi-state programs in complex stakeholder environments.


• Demonstrated ownership of evidence-backed program design. You can point to a theory of change or a program model you shaped, and explain what the evidence made you change.


• Belief that government systems can and will change, and the patience to work at their pace. Excellent written and spoken English: a relevant regional language is a plus. A Master's in education, instructional design, social sciences, or public policy is highly desirable.

Location and Compensation

Location : Pune, Maharashtra. Frequent travel to rural areas across the country.

Compensation : Apart from being a part of a young and dynamic learning team, the individual will receive a healthy compensation at par with the non-profit sector benchmark for this position, commensurate with the individual’s prior experience and qualifications. The current compensation band offered, based on fit and experience, is 36-40 lakh INR per annum CTC.

Leadership For Equity is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Prohibits Discrimination and Harassment of Any Kind. We do not discriminate on the basis of caste, race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other non-merit factor.