Program Head - Strategy and Partnerships

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About the Organization

WRI India, an independent charity legally registered as the India Resources Trust, provides objective information and practical proposals to foster environmentally sound and socially equitable development. WRI India’s mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations. Through research, analysis, and recommendations, WRI India puts ideas into action to build transformative solutions to protect the earth, promote livelihoods, and enhance human well-being.

We are inspired by and associated with World Resources Institute (WRI), a global research organization. Currently over 250 researchers are working with WRI India in our offices at Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Job Description

Restoration is gaining momentum in India as a strategy that delivers multiple benefits, including food and water security, biodiversity enhancement, job creation, livelihood improvements and climate change mitigation and adaptation. To achieve impact at scale, restoration efforts need to make a shift from being funded by philanthropic, CSR, bilateral grants, to unlocking public finance at scale. This shift requires working on enabling conditions (policy incentives, monitoring, capacity, enabling creating of supply chains) around restoration and reducing policy barriers to restoration to have more synergistic flow of public funding building on strategic partnerships and engagement with a diversity of partners. A key focus area for the candidate would be to strengthen the engagement with the government across levels and enable the unlock of public capital in target states and landscapes.

Reporting to the Executive Program Director of the Food, Land and Water, you will grow the work around restoration, refine its strategy to scale restoration, and thought leadership and strengthen partnership and engagement for the program.

Job Responsibilities

Strengthening strategy and its delivery for restoration implementation (40%)

• Lead the design and scaling strategy for restoration, e.g., enabling conditions stream of work (around public capital, reducing barriers in supply chains) to support the restoration of landscapes in India with support from the program team,     
• Explore knowledge gaps on restoration, e.g., identifying key research questions and steer research that need to be addressed. Author or co-author knowledge products (e.g., reports, briefs, data-products)
• Design monitoring strategy for enabling conditions workstream

Program Leadership, Strategy and Management (30%)

Strategy to planning

• Collaborate with program leadership to develop and refresh the program’s strategy, aligning with organizational goals and country priorities working with co-lead of the program
• Lead strategic planning, ensuring delivery of the program’s vision and goals in context of enabling conditions.
• Lead implementation of the program strategy in connection with ongoing projects on enabling conditions.

Planning to implementation

• Manage project scope and team
• Ensure compliance with reporting requirements for donors and other partners by coordinating with relevant program team members. Preparation of narrative reports and monitor budgets and indicators for ongoing projects on enabling conditions.
• Mentor, manage interdisciplinary teams, ensuring seamless collaboration and communication.
• Develop and implement operational plans and procedures that enhance program delivery.
• Lead the execution of high-priority projects, from launch to completion, ensuring adherence to timelines, scope, and quality standards.
• Oversee the management of the program’s budget with program leadership and the operations team, ensuring financial sustainability and accountability.

Partnership and engagement (30%)

• Network across sectors and engage key stakeholders in program projects especially government.
• Develop new partnerships and engagements to build and take forward program strategy especially to strengthen enabling conditions work on restoration
• Attend external meetings and travel related to ongoing projects.
• Represent the organization at events, coalitions, roundtables, and similar settings.
• Enable strategic communication on restoration internally and with external partners.

Education Qualification/Required Skills & Experience

• Master’s degree in environment, restoration, or a related field.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience in strategic planning, operations management, and project leadership within the natural resource management, restoration sectors.
• Familiarity with landscape and restoration agendas, public policies, and national and international commitments.
• You have experience leading high-level research and communicating complex ideas to different audiences
• Proven ability to manage complex programs, cross-functional teams, and large-scale initiatives and budget management.
• Excellent communication, partner management, and donor engagement skills.
• Proficiency in project management tools and methodologies.
• Professional fluency in English, fluency in one more Indian language (e.g., Hindi) is an advantage.
• Strategic thinking with the ability to translate ideas into applicable plans.
• Strong leadership,  team management and mentoring skills.
• Data-driven approach to decision-making and continuous improvement.
• Ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills for engaging with multiple partners.

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