Senior Manager - Program Operations

Designation: Senior Manager, Program Operations
Job Location: Qutub Institutional Area, New Delhi

Organization Profile:
The organization was established in 2003 and presently has programs in 10 states: Chhattisgarh, Delhi NCR, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh.

It is a global organization transforming the lives of millions of children in low-income communities by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Founded in 2000 on the belief that World Change Starts with Educated Children, their innovative model focuses on deep, systemic transformation within schools during two critical periods in a child's schooling: early primary school for literacy acquisition and secondary school for girls education. They work in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations, and governments to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and to ensure girls can complete secondary school with the skills necessary to negotiate key life decisions. By focusing on the quality of education provided within communities and ensuring these outcomes are measured, we have created a model that can be replicated, localized, and sustained by governments. They have globally distributed offices and staff and have benefited more than 39 million children across 23 countries.

Position Overview:
The Senior Manager - Program Operations is a member of the Operations team at the country office. This position will report directly to the Program Operations Director (POD). The Senior Manager, Operations, will assist the Program Operations Director in ensuring smooth operations at the field level across 5-6 states and will directly supervise the State Heads to accomplish the operations department's goals. The Senior Manager, Operations, will also be instrumental in coordinating with other departments at the Country Office (CO) and Global Office (GO) levels. This position involves frequent travel to field offices, as well as regular interaction with education officials, partners, school administrators, teachers, and students.

Roles and Responsibilities:

A) Management, Planning, and Coordination:

• Develop a good understanding of all the programs and their inter-linkages with a focus on convergence.
• Adeptly plan, meticulously monitor, and comprehensively evaluate programs at all levels across multiple states, efficiently navigating projects from inception to completion. Lead efforts to create a tracker of the allocated states and update it regularly, including procurement.
• Coordinate and follow up with state teams and the admin department on various reports, ICs, and budget-related issues.
• Support the Operations team in tracking ICs and corresponding expenses at the state level while working closely with the allocated state teams.
• Possess strong financial management expertise, including annual planning, budgeting, budget outlook, cash forecasting, and the ability to analyze and track budgets for various programs.
• Compile and interpret financial data with the ability to identify instances of both under-spending and overspending.
• Coordinate with other program teams for timely redressal and mitigation of various operational issues.
• Coordinate with RM&E to study the analysis of Literacy and GEP data trends, identifying potential risks and deviations in the implementation of program design. Identify and report ineffective or inconsistent processes at field levels and suggest process improvements.
• Communicate and correspond with GO counterparts to highlight issues and seek clarification on various aspects of operations in the country.
• Help develop systems to keep records of all partner NGOs and state-level partnerships, and follow up on the timely renewal of partnership documents (agreements/MoUs).
• Innovate and create systems with the POD that are easily adaptable at the field level to increase the operational efficiency of the organization.
• Identify implementation challenges, provide solutions, or flag them to the Program Operations Director (POD) for redressal.
• Serve as a second line to the POD and represent the POD in various meetings as required.
• 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.
• Participate in trainings for the Literacy Program and GEP Program.

B) Operation System Design:

• Help create systems to monitor operations in the allocated states while keeping the ICs updated. This may include, but is not limited to, the creation of calendars, trackers, toolkits, frameworks, etc., with the help of the concerned department.
• Responsible for improving operational efficiency in the field by providing timely inputs and improvement support at the state level through state managers.
• Provide assistance and inputs to RM&E on an as-needed basis regarding the improvement of process and program outcome monitoring.
• Coordinate with the RM&E department in the analysis of Literacy & GEP data trends, identifying potential risks and deviations in the implementation of program design.
• Keep track of progress towards agreed outcomes.

C) Reporting:

• In collaboration with the CO Literacy and GEP teams, analyze annual program goals and budgets to ensure alignment with organizational strategies and priorities.
• Lead and collaborate with the CO Literacy and GEP teams on developing and providing oversight of the implementation calendar, budget, and guidelines (including contextualized budgets), annual planning, HR structure, quarterly reporting, and overall tracking of program implementation and spending.
• Collect and collate CO and GO level reports (monthly and quarterly) from allocated states, and review them in collaboration with the RM&E team for final reporting.
• Help coordinate the generation and documentation of best practices at the country and state levels with the help of state managers.
• Generate independent reports on GSD to monitor program implementation, as well as perform data analysis.
• Provide inputs to various strategic documents at the CO & GO levels.
• Review the monthly and quarterly program reports of GEP, including dashboards, and provide suggestions to the concerned state teams and departments as needed.
• Coordinate with the allocated states for the effective implementation of the PIM and work in close coordination with state teams and departments.

D) Technical Assistance:

• Assist the POD and other teams in preparing proposals for technical assistance.
• Assist the POD in planning and ensuring the smooth implementation of technical assistance projects and provide timely feedback for process and program improvement.

E) External Coordination and Networking:

• Stay informed about trends in the fields of education (early grade literacy, girls' education, and life skills, and library) and use this information to assess and inform the Literacy program.
• Build partnerships with NGOs and other organizations with a similar agenda as the organization, with the goal of becoming a key player in this community.
• Collaborate with the government to build support for early grade reading, life skills, and library programs in general and their approach in particular.
• Effectively oversee senior team members at the state level, such as State Heads, Managers, and Officers, and possess expertise in capacity building and team management.

F) Other:

• Participate in any other activities required to fulfill the objectives of the organization.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the POD.
• Undertake field visits as required, in consultation with the POD.
• Represent the POD in internal meetings, if required.
• Represent them on various platforms.
• Follow up on donor visits in various locations in coordination with the Communications and Development teams.

Qualification & Experience:

Required:

• Master's degree in education/social sciences/social work or equivalent.
• 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 in education projects.
• Possess strong financial management expertise, including annual planning, budgeting, budget outlook, cash forecasting, and the ability to analyze and track budgets for various programs.
• Excellent managerial and interpersonal skills, including the ability to manage and mentor people.
• Demonstrate excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Knowledge or training in linguistics will be an added advantage.
• Willingness to travel to various states for a minimum of 6-8 days per month.

To be successful as a member of the team, you will also:

• Have a passion for our mission and a strong desire to impact a dynamic non-profit organization.
• Be an innovative and creative thinker who tries new things and inspires others to do the same.
• Have a very high level of personal and professional integrity and trustworthiness.
• Have a strong work ethic and require minimal direction.
• Work well independently as well as part of a team.
• Thrive in a fast-paced and fun environment.

Compensation:
They offer a competitive salary with excellent benefits. Benefits include a thirteenth-month bonus, health insurance, and a retirement plan. The non-monetary compensation includes a unique opportunity to be part of an innovative, meaningful, and rapidly growing organization that is transforming the lives of millions of children in developing countries through literacy and gender equality in education.