VP, Policy Programs & Partnerships

Josh Talks Pvt Ltd.; Gurugram District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Josh Talks Pvt Ltd. in India invites a VP level leader for Policy Programs & Partnerships to drive government engagement and procurement policy for Voice of India. You will build partnerships across central ministries and state governments, shape evaluation standards, and lead advocacy with international bodies.

Based in India with regular travel, preferably based in New Delhi. The role emphasizes neutrality, public-sector procurement expertise, and a track record turning relationships into

Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years in policy, partnerships, or public-sector technology.
• Experience with government across central ministries and states.
• Proven ability to drive adoption of policy or procurement decisions.
• Strong procurement knowledge: RFPs, tenders, GeM.
• Excellent communication in English and Hindi.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with government partners and map priority ministries.
• Embed Voice of India in government AI decisions and write evaluation briefs.
• Establish Voice of India in policy, guidelines, and procurement frameworks.
• Lead advocacy, meetings, briefs, and national/international forums.
• Build international relationships with UN systems and bodies.
• Build an independent evaluation committee with diverse stakeholders.
• Protect trust and independence, ensure neutral procurement practices.

Skills

Policy framework

Partnerships delivery

Government relationships

Procurement knowledge

Public-sector technology

Communication

Job description

Josh Talks · Voice of India · Full-time · New Delhi preferred

VP, Policy Programs & Partnerships

About Josh Talks and Voice of India

Josh Talks began as one of India's largest regional-language storytelling platforms and now builds human data infrastructure for AI. Its Voice of India is India's first human-powered multimodal evaluation platform, co-developed with IIT Madras. It measures how well AI models work for the people of India, in their own languages, through independent human evaluation rather than vendor claims or automated judges.

Voice of India was launched in New Delhi on 4 August 2026 in the presence of Shri S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY, with RBIH and SEBI in attendance. The Government of Karnataka has used it to shortlist Kannada speech models, and its speech to text benchmark is in a paper accepted at Interspeech 2026.

The mission

Make Voice of India the evaluation standard for AI across Indian government. Collaborate with central ministries, national missions and state governments as evaluation partners, build tests around the public services they run, and get the resulting evidence used in tenders, procurement and deployment decisions.

Voice of India supports each decision in three stages: selection from live leaderboards, a use-case evaluation of shortlisted models, and continuous evaluation after deployment. Josh Talks is looking for a senior public-sector leader with deep government relationships and a record of turning them into adopted policy and procurement practice. A few departments and states using our evaluations in actual decisions matters more than a long list of meetings and MoUs.

The core question for this role is: before any central or state government department buys or deploys an AI system, does it refer to Voice of India?

Growth path. This role is hired at Vice President level. After 12 months, based on performance, it will transition into a directorial role leading policy and government work for Voice of India across Josh Talks.

Your responsibilities

• Collaborate with the right government partners. Maintain a focused list of about ten priority ministries, missions and states, with a first wave of five. Map who owns each AI programme, writes the tender and holds the budget, and personally lead each relationship end to end.
• Embed Voice of India in government AI decisions. Work towards every central and state AI tender asking for independent evaluation on Voice of India. Write evaluation briefs with research, agree re-evaluation after deployment, and expand state by state.
• Establish Voice of India in policy. Work for Voice of India to be referenced in government guidelines, mission documents, procurement frameworks and standards.
• Lead advocacy and communications. Lead meetings and briefings with officials, write policy briefs and white papers, speak at national and international forums, and champion language inclusion and sovereign AI.
• Build international relationships. Develop relationships with the UN system and multilateral bodies working on AI and languages, such as UNESCO, UNDP and ITU.
• Build an independent evaluation committee. Set up and run a multi-stakeholder committee of government, academia, civil society, industry, language experts and international organisations, with a published charter and conflict-of-interest rules.
• Protect trust and independence. Research owns methodology and results. You stay neutral between vendors and follow public-sector rules on procurement, data protection and publication.

What strong performance looks like

The primary measure is the number and importance of government bodies that use Voice of India in actual AI decisions. Meetings, events and MoUs are supporting activities, not the outcome.

• Priority partners onboarded. The right ministries, missions and states commit people and time to a defined evaluation.
• Inclusion in tenders. Central and state AI tenders require or recommend independent evaluation on Voice of India.
• Adoption demonstrated. Departments use our evaluations in model selection, procurement or deployment, with documented case studies.
• Named in policy. Voice of India is referenced in at least one central government guideline, mission document or procurement framework.
• Independent committee in place. Credible members from government, academia, civil society, industry and international bodies meet regularly.
• Default reference. Departments check Voice of India before any AI tender or deployment decision.

Who we are looking for

• Relevant seniority. Minimum 10 years combining policy framework work with partnerships implemented on the ground, across government, public policy or public-sector technology.
• Partnerships delivered on the ground. You have built and run partnerships with government through to implementation. Think-tank or research experience alone is not enough.
• Government experience. For example MeitY, the IndiaAI Mission, Bhashini, NITI Aayog, a state IT department, or public-sector work at a consultancy or technology company.
• Procurement knowledge. RFPs, tenders, GeM, empanelment and evaluation committees.
• Specific government access. Recent, credible relationships with decision makers in central ministries and several state governments.
• Record of adoption. A policy, guideline, standard or procurement decision you helped get adopted and implemented.
• Evaluation fluency. Ability to explain benchmarks and their limits to officials. A research degree is not required.
• Communication. Excellent English and Hindi, and comfort being the public face of a national initiative.
• Judgment. The ability to preserve independence and neutrality under political or commercial pressure.

What this role is not

Not enterprise partnerships, which sit with our Lead - AI Partnerships, India. Not a vendor representative, not limited to introductions, and not research leadership.

Working setup

The role reports to the founder and CEO of Josh Talks and works closely with research and IIT Madras. It is based in India with regular travel to state capitals; New Delhi is preferred. Assessment includes a short case exercise on how a department should evaluate an AI system before buying it.

Read the full job description here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1prsA6iJctPZjb6qkk7nuLqnaF-o86Jb8uzXiy8Y1Ywo/edit?usp=sharing