Director of the Unnati Skill Development Centre : Lodha Foundation

Lodha Foundation is the driving force behind Lodha’s social impact initiatives and is aligned behind the purpose of using Lodha’s capabilities and resources to enable India to thrive and become a high income economy by 2047. We strive to advance India’s social and economic development by supporting women to enter and stay in the formal workforce with regular, monthly salaries. A key enabler of economic progress and social mobility, the foundation is constantly deepening the quality and scale of its impact. We have launched: the Lodha Genius Programme, a national level gifted education programme called the Lodha Genius Programme run in partnership with Ashoka University. We run 6 schools in Maharashtra. Our education initiatives currently touch more than 100,000 students across India. the Unnati programme, which includes internal and external efforts to expand and support women in the workforce both within and outside Lodha. We currently implement the Unnati Skill Development Centre, which offers women job readiness and placement services; co-design solutions with corporate partners and Lodha’s vendors to scale ensuring women enter and stay in the workforce; and coordinate Unnati Champions’ strategies within Lodha to deepen our female labor participation efforts. Unnati currently reaches an estimated 50,000 women Mumbai, with 200 women actively enrolled at our Centre and several company partnerships underway. We are at the outset of a journey to both scale and deepen our impact.

Unnati We support women with job readiness services and job placement to join the formal workforce through the Unnati Skill Development Centre. We offer incentives to employer partners committed to gender diversity, such as affordable workspaces. We advance Diversity, Equity and Inclusion goals at Lodha. We understand what works through research of our own and partners’ and advocate for changes.

Who will you work with?
You will work as part of the senior leadership office under the guidance and supervision of the Gender Lead to solve some of the most pressing issues facing our nation that enable India move to a high income economy. You will lead Unnati’s women’s economic empowerment efforts at the Unnati Skill Development Centre physically located in Lodha’s smart city Palava in Dombivli (address: iThink Palava, 1st Floor, across from Xperia Mall in Dombivli). This includes managing a team of staff and volunteers; overseeing all in-person and hybrid job readiness services and opportunities at the centre; curating a series of events and programmes related to job readiness; identifying and unlocking corporate partners for women’s job placement; and building other partnerships with civil society, companies, academia and beyond. You will work across company partners and stakeholder types, which will give you the opportunity build and scale our ambitious interventions.

When you join Lodha, you are joining an organization whose culture is distinctive, fast-paced and inclusive. We will accelerate your development as a leader to create positive, enduring change in country. You are an important source of intellectual insight, framing issues in the Indian women’s empowerment ecosystem, respectively, creating and scaling customizable solutions for low- to middle-income unemployed, recently employed or employed women at-risk of dropping out of the workforce due to a variety of systemic issues. Specifically, you’ll be responsible for iterating company and/or context-specific programme models delivered at our based out of the centre for low- to middle-income women, identifying synergistic opportunities to scale the impact, and manage/grow stakeholder engagements.

What will you do?
With your sound expertise and network you will provide leadership and direction to the women’s economic empowerment (WEE) portfolio. You will lead the management, programme implementation, partnerships’ development, monitoring and reporting of the Unnati Skill Development Centre aimed at supporting women enter, navigate and stay in the workforce. You will customize the programme for women enrolled at the Unnati Skill Development Centre and in the future, its satellite sites; Lodha vendors’ female staff, and company partners’ female staff. Specifically your tasks will include (but not limited to):

• Oversee operations and implementation related to designing, implementing and monitoring and evaluating the Unnati Skill Development Centre’s programming (budgets, programme implementation, communications, partnerships, human resources)
• Oversee the development of fit-for-purpose, scalable programme models on upskilling courses; short- and long-term entrepreneurship courses; career counselling services; mentorship programming; job readiness and networking events; job fairs and more for women enrolled at Unnati and/or company or company partner needs
• Support company and other stakeholders/partners pilot, implement, monitor and evaluate, and scale successful components of the WEE programming
• Bring in new partners (company partners, research partners, advocacy partners and other implementation partners) to test ideas and scale viable initiatives
• Work closely with other team members part of Unnati to develop relevant, parallel programmes such as mentorship; family engagement; incentives for companies; career counselling models; and otherwise based on evidence and needs identified
• Provide guidance on the design and implementation of a communications plan including creatives, channels for dissemination, frequency of dissemination, and ways to socialize information about the Unnati Skill Development Centre to increase and expand enrolment in Dombivli/Kalyan areas and beyond
• Support engagement on women’s economic empowerment as part of Lodha’s broader ESG portfolio internally and externally
• Involve the Lodha ecosystem and associates in supporting and championing programmes at the Unnati Skill Development Centre
• Support with reviewing and inputting into the Lodha Foundation’s research and advocacy agendas related to WEE
• Implement pilots and prove the scalability and viability of new initiatives
• Engage and involve multiple stakeholders for implementation, scale, advocacy and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of the program
• Report the progress to the Lodha Foundation Social Impact and Gender Leads and to senior leadership, as requested

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Public Administration, Business, Social Work, International Relations, or a related field
• Excellent academic record throughout
• Strong analytical abilities, both quantitative and qualitative
• Ability to implement large scale, multi-year programs with multiple stakeholders and work across departments influencing associates within the company to further engage with and take actions part of Unnati’s mandate
• Ability to present information in an insightful and structured manner, both written and oral
• Demonstrated ability to manage teams and stakeholders to accomplish the vision of the organization
• Works well with junior and peer colleagues to make decisions, take actions on decisions identified, and problem solve
• Experience mentoring and providing guidance to junior colleagues
• Excellent writing, reporting, and presentation skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication in English and Hindi
• Understanding of the political and cultural environments of India
• Demonstrated passion for development and social impact issues (through professional experience, internships, volunteerism, coursework, or other experiences)
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills for interactions with multiple stakeholders
• Prefer candidates with on-ground experience in working with different communities, various stakeholder types
• Prefer candidates with minimum 8-10 years of work experience in related fields

Interested candidates can share their CV’s on kathryn.moore@lodhagroup.com