Job ID: 290767

Associate Director - Large Scale Programs

Alohomora Education Foundation

Location: NCR, Delhi

Apply by: 15 May 2026

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ALOHOMORA EDUCATION FOUNDATION

Associate Director — Large Scale Programs

UNICEF Project Lead | Delhi NCR | 11-Month Contract

ABOUT ALOHOMORA EDUCATION FOUNDATION
Alohomora Education Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit organisation committed to enabling informed career decision-making for students in government schools. Since 2017, AEF has worked with students in Grades 9–12, partnering with state education departments to co-design and deliver career guidance at scale — through teachers, facilitators, and youth leaders embedded in school systems.

AEF currently operates across Haryana, Uttarakhand, and Bihar, reaching 39,000+ students across 340+ schools. Our flagship initiative, Pratibha Manthan, won the District Good Governance Award (2023), and our model has been recognised by the World Bank Youth Summit.

AEF is now partnering with UNICEF and Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) departments in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Assam to support structured career guidance for government school students at significantly greater scale — a mandate that this role is central to.

THE OPPORTUNITY
This is a senior leadership role for someone who has spent a decade or more building and running complex, multi-state programs in India — and is ready to lead a high-stakes initiative end-to-end.

As Associate Director for the UNICEF project, you will be the nerve centre of AEF's most ambitious initiative to date. Each of the three project states — UP, Assam, and Gujarat — has a dedicated State Lead who owns day-to-day implementation on the ground. Your primary job is to lead, support, and align those State Leads: setting strategic direction, reviewing quality, solving problems they escalate, and making sure all three states are moving together coherently.

Beyond team leadership, you will be AEF's senior representative in engagements with UNICEF and state-level SSA leadership — working alongside the State Leads rather than substituting for them. This role demands someone who understands how large-scale government education programs actually work, has a strong grounding in training design and facilitation, and knows how to build capable teams in complex, distributed contexts.

AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY
1. Team Leadership & State Lead Management
• Lead and manage three State Leads (one each in UP, Assam, and Gujarat) — your primary responsibility is their direction, development, and performance
• Hold regular review cadences with each State Lead; help them navigate blockers, escalate where needed, and maintain implementation quality across states
• Foster a culture of reflection, learning, and high standards within the project team
• Support recruitment and onboarding of state team members as the project scales
• Create conditions where State Leads can do their best work — without centralising decisions that should sit with them

2. Training Design & Program Quality
• This project's core goal is building training capacity across levels — from state officials to master trainers to teachers. You will own the quality and coherence of that training architecture
• Work with AEF's central design team and State Leads to ensure training modules are pedagogically sound, contextually relevant, and effectively delivered
• Review and strengthen facilitation approaches across states; bring subject matter expertise in adolescent education, career guidance, or youth development to bear on program design decisions
Ensure M&E systems capture what matters; synthesise insights from the field into actionable improvements

3. Project Strategy & Delivery
• Own overall program delivery across UP, Assam, and Gujarat — against agreed timelines, milestones, and quality benchmarks set with UNICEF and SSA
• Co-create annual and quarterly work plans in close coordination with State Leads, UNICEF, and AEF's central team
• Identify risks early across states and course-correct proactively — working through your State Leads rather than bypassing them
• Contribute to donor reporting, including quarterly and annual reports for UNICEF and other stakeholders

4. Stakeholder & Partner Engagement
• Support State Leads in their relationships with state and district SSA officials — stepping in for senior-level engagements while ensuring State Leads remain the primary point of contact in their states
• Serve as AEF's representative with UNICEF program officers at the national/project level
• Represent AEF at relevant forums, reviews, and external convenings as required

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
• Experience & Background
• 12–16 years of experience, with a significant portion in education, youth development, or career guidance — this is not a generic program management role; subject matter depth matters
• Demonstrated experience leading and developing teams — ideally distributed, multi-state teams where you managed through others rather than doing everything yourself
• Strong grounding in training design and facilitation: you understand learning pedagogies, can review a training module with a critical eye, and have designed or overseen capacity-building programs at scale
• Prior experience working within or alongside government education systems at the state level; understanding of how SSA, SCERT, and district structures function
• Experience engaging with bilateral or multilateral partners (UNICEF, USAID, World Bank, or equivalent) is strongly preferred
• Background in fellowships such as Teach for India, Gandhi Fellowship, or similar is an asset

Skills & Attributes
• People leadership is your primary strength — you know how to set direction, give feedback, develop capability, and hold accountability in a team without micromanaging
• Subject matter expertise in adolescent education, career counselling, or youth development — you bring a perspective that goes beyond project management
• Able to build credibility with senior government officials and UNICEF teams, while staying genuinely connected to what's happening in classrooms
• Strong analytical and communication skills — can synthesise complex field realities into clear decisions and narratives
• High learning orientation; thrives in ambiguous, fast-moving environments and brings steadiness to teams under pressure
• Willingness to travel frequently across UP, Assam, and Gujarat
• Proficiency in Hindi is essential; working knowledge of Gujarati or Assamese is an advantage

WHAT WE OFFER

The opportunity to lead one of the most ambitious career guidance programs in India, with direct impact on lakhs of students

A collaborative, values-driven team that takes program quality seriously

Rs 18–20 LPA for an 11-month contract, with scope for extension or absorption into a longer-term role based on performance

Significant autonomy and space to shape how this program evolves

Job Email ID:

harsimran(at)alohomora.org