Operations and Special Projects Lead – GDI India

GDI South Asia, Pvt Ltd is an independent, for-profit entity legally registered in India. GDI South Asia has a global partnership with other locally-registered GDI entities around the world, specifically GDI US (Washington, DC), GDI East Asia (Hong Kong), and GDI Africa (Nairobi, Kenya).

GDI’s mission is to incubate transformational development ventures to build and scale the next generation of social impact solutions. Scaled impact is achieved through two pathways: i) top-down initiatives involving multiple stakeholders and sectors, and ii) bottom-up engagements with individual enterprises. From climate to agriculture, health to economic inclusion, GDI builds across sectors to drive game-changing impact at scale. GDI’s ‘Growth Engineering’ process is used to execute across the two impact pathways, adapting as needed or focusing on sub-components of the process to best suit a given engagement. GDI has built a significant track record in our field, having now shaped over 40 social impact ventures.

The Operations and Special Projects Lead will be a key member of the India team, effectively contributing to their finance and accounting management and overseeing day-to-day operations, subcontracting, and payroll functions. This role will be responsible for managing a suite of operations and compliance activities and ensuring those activities uphold GDI’s policies and procedures, client requirements, and industry best practices. The position requires initiative and resourcefulness in creative problem-solving, analyzing trends and patterns to propose new procedures, and maintaining strong relationships with internal and external customers. Coordination across teams will be essential to keep the organization running smoothly. In addition, this candidate will establish and assist GDI incubated initiatives with setting up their finance and operations functions. Like every position at GDI, staff are expected to exercise a high degree of autonomy and take on significant responsibility. An ideal candidate will have broad interests and background knowledge in nonprofit operations management. The person is expected to ensure GDI India’s alignment with GDI regional entities.

Responsibilities

Finance and Accounting Management for GDI South Asia and our Incubated Initiatives

• Oversee and monitor performance of the external firm responsible for the following tasks while ensuring timely and accurate completion:
  • The full cycle of accounts payable and disbursements functions
  • The full cycle of accounts receivable and receipts functions
  • Maintenance of electronic filing systems for accounting files.
  • Preparation of accounting schedules, bank reconciliations, payroll activities/allocations, and month-end closing entries, including allocation of costs and recognition of revenue.
• Monitor project expenditure to ensure compliance with budget, internal policies, client terms, and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
• Support the annual audit and preparation of tax forms and filings.

Operations Management for GDI and our Incubated Initiatives

• Review and manage contracts.
• Manage GDI’s insurance plans.
• Act as a clearing house on work with outside counsel, including cataloging and documenting learning.
• Supports GDI/initiative subcontracting activities, including reviewing procurement documentation, providing guidance to staff, drafting/negotiating subcontracts, ensuring subcontractor compliance with policies, procedures, and/or donor requirements, and maintaining proper files.
• Provides high-quality, timely support to internal and external stakeholders.
• Develops, refines, disseminates, and trains staff on policies and procedures.
• Assists with proposal preparation and related donor due diligence activities on behalf of GDI, its initiatives, and subsidiaries.
• Develops, implements, and monitors systems for tracking and storing procurement documentation, subcontracts, and deliverables.
• Works with external clients that provide operational support to the GDI network (insurance brokers, legal counsel, banking institutions, etc.).

Coordination and Quality Assurance

• Coordinate the GDI work across teams as we support external initiatives. This includes ensuring that all critical activities are assigned an owner and outlier or irregular activities are effectively tracked and managed.
• Assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the team’s work and recommend areas and solutions for refinement.

Other

• Provide additional support as requested.

• Undergraduate college degree with 6–8 years of related professional work experience (especially in Finance, Accounting, and Operations), preferably for an international organization.
• Experience in working with multiple donors/foundations/non-profits internationally as well as Indian entities will be preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to break down large, complex problems into smaller pieces, develop hypotheses, structure analyses to test these hypotheses, and generate clear insights and actionable recommendations.
• Outstanding analytical skills with a demonstrated ability to synthesize quantitative and qualitative data and surface clear, actionable insights for leadership.
• Collaborative team contributor; excellent listening skills; effective influencer; strong interpersonal skills.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills; good attention to detail.
• Ability to self-manage work streams and tasks; self-directed and resourceful with high standards for quality output.
• Ability to coach colleagues and entrepreneurs on strategy and operations skills.
• A curious and creative intellect and a style that includes flexibility, levelness, and a sense of humor and humility.

Qualities of GDI Employees

• A relentless drive to get things done.
• Curious and entrepreneurial mindset.
• Passion for driving social impact and tackling the world’s biggest challenges in new ways.

Compensation

The salary range for this position is 36-40 lacs INR.

Application Process

If you believe you can clearly demonstrate your abilities to meet the relevant criteria for the role, please attach your detailed CV and a cover letter, outlining your interest in this position and why you would be a good fit. Please note that the cover letter is considered an important aspect of the application and will be evaluated against the qualifications above. Applications that do not include a cover letter will not be considered. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Global Development Incubator is an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace.