Chief Programmes Officer – Atma – An Accelerator for Education

Atma We are entrepreneurial and change-minded organizational consultants with a professional background in business or education. We are passionate about transforming the Indian education landscape into a place where every child really learns. We do that by empowering grassroots educational initiatives to grow, amplify and multiply their impact. And gradually change the future of education and India. We achieve these results by adopting a systematic management approach which leads NGOs to scale-up, expand their reach and dramatically increase student learning outcomes.

Atma is an accelerator for Education. Our vision is to ensure quality education for all children and we do this by accelerating the impact of NGOs working in Education. We provide hands-on and customised capacity building support to NGOs to enable them to sustain, strengthen and scale. We operate via two primary programmes – Accelerator & Lab.

So far, we have built the capacity of over 85 Education NGOs across various geographies in the last 14 years through our high intensity programme offerings. We work with over 1000 NGOs a year through our low intensity offerings.

The Chief Programmes Officer Will oversee the management of the Accelerator programme, assigned Atma Partner organisations by Atma Consultants as well as the management of other short term offerings.

Reporting to Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Leadership

● Responsible for presenting performance of Atma programmes to the Board on a quarterly basis

● Contribute towards building of culture in the organisation as part of the Leadership team at Atma

● Set the vision for growth and annual goals for the Programmes vertical

● Showcase Atma’s capacity building work in the external eco-system

● Take ownership & accountability of managing a high performing programmes team

Impact Measurement

● Lead any third party/donor led impact evaluation initiatives for Atma’s programmes

● Take ownership of designing a clear articulation of outcomes enabled by each of the programme offerings and strengthening impact measurement systems for the same, in partnership with Lead Consultant

● Lead the Quarterly Assessment (QA) process every quarter at Atma towards timely collection and reporting of Partner NGO feedback

● Ensure annual collection of EOY data to track improvements in partner NGOs

● Lead the Graduation evaluation efforts for partners graduating each year

● Assist the Communications team in showcasing Atma externally through social media and events/conferences

Team Management

● Identify potential growth & learning areas and create plans to develop skill sets and competencies of the Lead Consultants towards better impact of the Atma programme

● Assist the Lead Consultant in doing the above for the Programmes team

● Support the Lead Consultants, in adding value to and improving the quality of, all of Atma’s programmatic partnerships

● Evaluating training needs and developing organisation specific team trainings

● Lead programme team staffing – matching available Consultants to upcoming partnerships and projects

● Provide mentorship and guidance to programme team members as and when required on OD projects and partnerships

● Refine and improve Programme team KRAs annually

● Ensure high staff retention and employee satisfaction for the Programmes team

Knowledge Management(KM)

● Strategically viewing KM as a source of thought leadership – driving the design of articles, templates and frameworks so as to standardise the Atma programmes and showcase them externally

● Overseeing the creation of SOP/Operations Manual for programmes

● Supervise the accurate recording and documentation of critical programme data into Salesforce and Atma drives, with the assistance of the Lead Consultant

● Manage the articulation of partner case studies, outcomes enabled sheet and set benchmarks for documenting good reference projects

Programme Design & Management Accelerator

● Identify, design and implement regular programme improvements for the Accelerator and Lab programmes at Atma like Technology, Leadership, Governance and Atma Alumni Support

● Accountable for the evaluation of partner performance on a quarterly basis through the Accelerator Review process and presenting to CEO

● Ensure MoU documentation and annual renewal of existing partner organisations.

● Be the face of Atma and actively manage relationships with all partner NGOs with the support of the Accelerator Lead Consultant

● Managing partner fees and income raised through the Accelerator programme

● Design and lead workshops and project partnerships independently

Lab

● Design and lead the execution of Atma Lab partnerships

● Be responsible for end to end executions of 1-2 partnerships

● Work closely with the CEO to identify and implement strategic partnerships

Partner Recruitment – Accelerator

● Design the Recruitment strategy on an annual basis

● Define clear NGO recruitment goals and ensure their timely & quality completion

● Manage the Recruitment Associate towards successful and timely partner onboarding

● Undertake periodic improvement of the recruitment process in order to make it more efficient, effective and competitive

Other tasks:

● Taking on internal organisational improvement initiatives as they get planned

● Ensure all organisational processes are being followed as per expectations

● Assisting the CEO with fundraising and donor reporting

● Engage with select Board members on special projects/initiatives

● Attend events/conferences and represent Atma externally

● Engaging with graduated/alumni partner organisations

● Enabling funder and resource linkages for partner organisations.

● Data management for programmes

We would like to call out that Atma is a lean organisation where every individual takes high ownership. Despite being a senior role, the CPO is expected to roll up his/her sleeves and implement many of the above tasks independently, under the guidance of the CEO.

Qualifications & Experience

● Graduate/Post graduate.

● 10 to 12 years of relevant work experience across any/many of the organisational development areas such as Strategy, Programme Design, Human Resources, Fundraising, M&E, Marketing & Comms etc.

● Social sector experience of at least 4-5 years, prior consulting experience is a plus

● Degree Field’s – Liberal arts, Business Administration, Public Administration or field of specialty chosen (i.e. health care administration)

● Desired – experience working with NGOs across sectors in India, experience working with international foundations/NGOs

Skills & Competencies

● Possess strong leadership and people management skills

● Possess strong project management skills

● Possess strong problem solving and independent thinking skills

● Ability to work under pressure and handle stress

● Ability to represent Atma strongly to an external audience

● Be proactive and take high initiative as needed in a leadership role

● Strong interpersonal and relationship building skills

● Strong written and verbal communication skills

● Proficient use of basic technology & softwares

If interested in applying for this position, please email your resume to carmeline@atma.org.in

Atma’s Policy on Child Protection and Safeguarding Atma has a strict zero tolerance policy towards child abuse or anyone who abets such abuse. The guiding principle of this policy is that the protection of children is always the overriding consideration in all actions by Atma Employees, Associates and Consultants. The Atma Child Protection Policy is a statement of the expectations Atma has of its employees, associates and consultants when they come into contact with children. Associations with anyone found to be engaging in abusive and exploitative relationships or interactions with children will be broken.