Designation : State Lead
Location : Raipur (Chhatisgarh)
Qualification : Master's degree in Public Health (MPH), Health Administration (MHA), Medicine, Community Medicine, Health Policy, Healthcare Management, or a related discipline. PhD/MBBS/BAMS/BHMS/BDS or any additional leadership qualifications will be an advantage.
Apply here: https://forms.gle/ffn9ed866HcHkGix5
Project Background:
The Sangam Collaborative is a landmark social development initiative designed to uplift 200 million Indians living in multidimensional poverty. With a transformative investment, SANGAM COLLABORATIVE concentrates efforts on five priority states—Jharkhand, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Bihar (JACOB states)—which are disproportionately impacted by acute poverty. Health and Education account for 67% of the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MDPI).
Sangam Collaborative works closely with state governments to strengthen public health systems, improve service delivery, and enhance community wellbeing. Program’s approach leverages Digitization, Decentralization, Leadership & Institutions, and Inclusion to enhance health service delivery. Domain expertise with proven solutions lays the foundation for introduction, progression, and gradual integration of innovations into government public health systems.
Role Overview:
The State Lead, Chhattisgarh will provide strategic and overall leadership for the organization's work in the state, driving large-scale system transformation and ensuring alignment with the priorities of the Government of Chhattisgarh.
The role will shape the state strategy, strengthen government partnerships, oversee program implementation, and drive measurable outcomes across priority social-sector domains, with preference for candidates with deep expertise in public health, nutrition, education, or related development sectors.
The incumbent will work closely with senior government officials, development partners, donors, civil society, academia, and internal leadership to identify priority challenges, develop scalable solutions, strengthen systems, and build the state portfolio.
Role & Responsibilities:
1. State Strategy, Leadership & Program Oversight :
• Define and drive the organization's state strategy and priorities for Chhattisgarh, aligned with government priorities and organizational goals.
• Lead the design, implementation, scale-up, and sustainability of programs across priority domains such as public health, nutrition, education, and other social-sector areas.
• Provide strategic oversight to ensure program quality, impact, governance, and sustainability, while identifying implementation bottlenecks and driving timely course correction.
• Strengthen government systems and capabilities across areas such as service delivery, leadership, human resources, digitalisation, data, governance, and institutional capacity.
• Translate emerging development challenges and field insights into scalable interventions, innovations, and policy recommendations.
• Contribute state-level insights and evidence to the organization's broader strategy, learning, and growth.
2. Government Partnerships & Ecosystem :
• Build and nurture trusted relationships with senior leadership across the Government of Chhattisgarh, relevant departments, missions, and district administration.
• Represent the organization in strategic reviews, policy discussions, government forums, and other high-level engagements.
• Understand government priorities, policies, systems, and decision-making processes and identify opportunities for collaboration and system strengthening.
• Build strategic partnerships with development partners, donors, multilateral agencies, civil society, academia, private sector, and other ecosystem stakeholders.
• Facilitate convergence across departments and stakeholders to address complex, cross-cutting development challenges.
• Build the organization's credibility and thought leadership in Chhattisgarh through strategic representation, knowledge sharing, and dissemination of evidence and learnings.
3. Team, Performance & Organizational Effectiveness :
• Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing state leadership and program team, fostering ownership, accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Provide strategic direction and coaching to senior team members and strengthen leadership capabilities across the state.
• Ensure effective coordination across program, technical, operations, monitoring, finance, HR, and other internal functions.
• Establish mechanisms to track program performance and impact and use data, evidence, field insights, and stakeholder feedback to drive decision-making and improvement.
• Ensure high-quality reporting and communication of state-level progress, outcomes, challenges, and learnings to government, donors, partners, and internal leadership.
4. Portfolio Growth, Resource Mobilization & State Impact :
• Identify opportunities for strategic partnerships, portfolio expansion, and resource mobilization in Chhattisgarh.
• Support development of proposals, concept notes, and strategic narratives for donors and development partners.
• Build a strong ecosystem of partners to expand the organization's reach, expertise, and impact in the state.
• Promote documentation and dissemination of successful practices and innovations emerging from Chhattisgarh.
• Build the organization's credibility and thought leadership within the Chhattisgarh social-sector ecosystem.
Essential Experience:
• 18+ years of progressive leadership experience in the social sector, preferably in public health, nutrition, education, health systems strengthening, or related development domains.
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale programs, portfolios, or system-transformation initiatives in partnership with state governments.
• Strong understanding of India's social-sector ecosystem, government systems, and public policy landscape, with demonstrated experience engaging senior government stakeholders.
• Experience working with donors, development partners, multilateral organizations, philanthropic institutions, or international development agencies will be preferred.
• Proven experience in strategic planning, program governance, organizational leadership, institution building, and portfolio management.
• Experience managing multidisciplinary teams, complex stakeholder ecosystems, and large-scale programs/budgets.
• Strong understanding of Chhattisgarh's socio-cultural, administrative, and development context is essential.
• Candidates who are sons/daughters of the soil or have deep and demonstrated roots, networks, and long-term engagement in Chhattisgarh will be strongly preferred.
Knowledge & Skills:
• Strategic thinking and systems leadership
• Social-sector and government ecosystem understanding
• Public health / nutrition / education program design and implementation
• Government, policy, and stakeholder engagement
• State-level portfolio and program management
• Organizational leadership and institution building
• Program governance, risk management, and impact measurement
• Resource mobilization and partnership development
• Strong communication, representation, and influencing skills
• Ability to navigate complex and diverse stakeholder environments
Leadership Competencies:
• Visionary and systems thinker
• Strong state-level leader and relationship builder
• Deeply grounded in local context
• Collaborative and inclusive leader
• Influences without authority and builds trust
• Drives innovation and transformation
• High integrity, accountability, and humility
• Navigates ambiguity and complexity effectively
• Builds future leaders and remains focused on long-term results
Core Values:
Knowledge :
• Expertise – we strive for a deeper understanding of our domain
• Innovation – we aspire to do things creatively
Action :
• Entrepreneurship – we are empowered to act decisively and create value
• Integrity – we are consistent in our thoughts, speech and action
Care :
• Trusteeship – we protect the interests of our customers, community, employees, partners and shareholders
• Humility – we aspire to be the best, yet strive to be humble
Travel: Medium to high travel across Chhattisgarh, including state and intervention districts, as required for stakeholder engagement, program reviews, field immersion, and understanding on-ground implementation and impact.