Senior Associate, Strategy & Build – GDI South Asia

Location: India (initial remote work, base location to be determined)

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).

The GDI 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) a set of top-down initiatives involving multiple stakeholders and/or 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. The GDI ‘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 Senior Associate role is a unique opportunity to be on the founding team of startups and partnerships focused on social impact. You will work closely with social leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs who are addressing some of the world’s biggest problems. The Senior Associate will play a critical role in supporting GDI’s selection and development of new initiatives with the greatest potential to address persistent global challenges. The Senior Associate will work across the Strategy & Build team to research, scope, shape, and prioritize the ideas and partners GDI takes on, as well as further develop initial blueprints into full-blown ventures. The Senior Associate will have the opportunity to landscape, analyze, and develop hypotheses around a wide-range of sectors—from youth employment, value-based health care, climate to marginalized populations and beyond. This will include supporting current and upcoming initiatives such as L2V, GOYN, Circularity etc. Although you will work closely with Strategy & Build Directors as supervisors, the Senior Associate is expected to exercise a high degree of autonomy and initiative and take on significant responsibility.

Note: this role will involve significant external consultations with global stakeholders and will require a work schedule that can periodically accommodate calls slightly earlier or later than usual work hours, despite their time zone.

Responsibilities:

Strategy Development

• Support Strategy & Build Directors to execute successful “Discover” phase work, in which GDI sources, evaluates, and shapes potential opportunities and concepts for incubation.
• Lead research, quantitative and qualitative analysis, stakeholder mapping, and market landscaping.
• Lead interviews with senior professionals, experts, and other stakeholders.
• Ultimately make recommendations for the fit of an initiative to GDI’s objectives and services, and support and inform early “blueprint” development for new initiatives.

Research & Communication

• Conduct complex financial, market, and policy analyses.
• Track risks, issues, stakeholders, and potential funders.
• Support the development and delivery of structured communications, especially reports and presentations.
• For initiatives such as GOYN, conduct data analysis and research to inform project design and implementation, including by developing compelling data visualizations and collaborating with initiative teams to analyze and interpret data.

Project Management + Implementation

• Support the translation of strategy blueprint into actionable plans, for example by developing, managing, and directly contributing to work plans and budget management.
• Support founding teams to deliver key components of “Design” and “Build” plans, ranging from early program design, supporting fundraising efforts and piloting to developing organizational infrastructure.
• Coordinate consultants and/or service providers, including assisting supervisors in preparation, processing, and administration of consultant and technical services contracts/agreements.
• Coordinate support from other GDI teams.
• Travel as needed to support implementation, including internationally.
• Coordinate and support occasional site visits by GDI Directors and initiative leads.

Donor Engagement

• Support the development of concept notes and other fundraising materials.
• Review and analyze financial expenditure reports against budgets and donor agreements.
• Collect, organize, and prepare program and financial information for donor progress and internal grant management reports, as well as routine queries.

Support to GDI 

• Brief leadership on a weekly basis as to progress, risks, and issues.
• Participate in bi-weekly and quarterly reviews with the GDI leadership team, initiative management team, and advisors.
• Contribute to the refinement of incubation methodologies based on your hands-on experiences.
• Support broader knowledge management and dissemination.

• Undergraduate college degree with 2–5 years of related professional work experience (especially strategy consulting, For a couple of initiatives, experience in the technology space 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.
• For a couple of initiatives such as GOYN, demonstrated experience with data visualization tools and methods will be preferred.
• ‘Collaborative team contributor; excellent listening; 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.
• 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 and Benefits: The salary range for this position is 30 – 40 lacs INR. 

How to Apply

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 their interest in this position and why they 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. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

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