Chief of Schools and Alumni – The Akanksha Foundation

The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organisation with a mission to provide children from low-income communities with a high-quality education, enabling them to maximize their potential and transform their lives. Akanksha primarily addresses formal education through 26 Akanksha Schools in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur. Over the past 30 years, the organisation has expanded from 15 children in one centre to more than 13,000 children in 26 schools. A commitment is made to support each child by giving him or her a strong educational foundation, values and help them plan how they can earn a steady livelihood as a step towards improving their standard of living.

Over the next few years, the Chief of Schools & Alumni will focus on following priorities:

• Envision and execute a strategic roadmap to deepen the impact of Akanksha’s schools in alignment with its ambitious student vision and learning principles.
• Build on the culture of high performance and innovation across Akanksha’s schools adopting systems, processes and practices in line with key 4 pillars of our school
• Envision multiple pathways for Akanksha alumni to be ‘empowered’ in partnership with the schools, leadership and the board
• Developthe next level of leadership across our schools with a focus on keeping the children at the center
• Create and execute a robust framework, systems, and processes etc to measure progress against defined outcomes in a research oriented manner
• Partner extensively with external organizations, our supporters, leadership team members and the board in service of schools and alumni
• Live by Akanksha’s values [Be The Change]

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer

Compensation: Starting ₹34 LPA gross + benefits

Essential Skills and mindsets

• Should have a passion for education – someone who signs up to defy and define what’s possible for children from low income communities.
• Should be creative, energetic, resilient and able to align several stakeholders in the Akanksha ecosystem towards the shared vision for our schools and alumni success.
• The ideal individual must have at least 10 years of total experience, with demonstrable engagement in the education sector in some shape/form.
• Must have led large teams and managed diverse stakeholders.
• Must have prior teaching experience of 2-4 years.
• School leadership experience is preferred yet not a must.

Specific Competencies required for this role

Strategic orientation and leadership : The individual must have the ability to set an aspirational vision and can inspire the stakeholders in the system to align with it. He/She can drive a high performance culture, is outcome oriented and resilient in face of challenges.

Operational Excellence : The individual must be a doer

Spirit of Experimentation: The ideal individual will have the spirit to drive innovation and experimentation with new ideas, program designs, and demonstrated willingness to learn from failures.

Relationship Builder : The individual should be able to manage a diverse and large team, building capacity and skills for growth across the stakeholders. He/She should be able to engage a set of diverse stakeholders – board members, donors, senior level govt officials etc.

Contact : aneesha.wadnerkar@akanksha.org