Senior Program Manager – Rural Economic Transformation in Delhi | The Convergence Foundation

The Convergence Foundation

The Convergence Foundation builds and backs organisations working on India's biggest economic and social problems. One of the organisations it has incubated is PRAGATI, the Programme for Rural Advancement, Growth and Transformative Initiatives, which works to raise economic prosperity in rural India. Rural India holds 63% of the country's people and 70% of its workforce, yet much of that work sits in low productivity agriculture, so there is real room to move families into higher income activity. PRAGATI works on two fronts: raising farm incomes by fixing structural problems across land, inputs, finance, markets, processing and trade, and building non-farm livelihoods by finding, financing and supporting rural enterprises that create local jobs. It also leads Amrit Prayas, a ten year economic development effort in the Deoria Lok Sabha constituency, which acts as a live testbed for a district transformation playbook other districts can copy. This role sits within PRAGATI's government engagement work, which partners with central ministries and state governments to combine policy and economic analysis with hands-on implementation.

Role

PRAGATI is working with the Ministry of Rural Development to shape the next phase of rural development, building on the ministry's welfare and infrastructure delivery platform so that it also drives lasting income growth. The engagement follows three paths: raising agricultural incomes, creating local non-farm livelihood opportunities, and enabling skilling for remunerative migration. The Senior Program Manager runs this engagement day to day, combining strategy, policy and execution. You will structure difficult problems, do the analysis behind them, design practical answers, build agreement with government and ecosystem partners, and push initiatives all the way through to implementation, while leading a small team and working closely with senior ministry officials, PRAGATI leadership, financial institutions, experts and private sector partners.

Responsibilities

• Work with the Ministry of Rural Development and PRAGATI leadership to identify and prioritise the opportunities with the greatest potential to raise rural incomes.
• Structure complex problems into clear hypotheses, analytical workstreams and actions that can be taken.
• Lead research and analysis across agriculture, rural enterprise, finance, skilling and migration.
• Turn priority opportunities into practical programme and policy designs, including implementation models, financing mechanisms and outcome frameworks.
• Build the economic and operational case for new initiatives and government partnerships.
• Work with experts and ecosystem partners to sharpen and test proposed solutions.
• Translate ministry priorities into clear workplans with named owners, milestones and deliverables.
• Establish a steady operating rhythm across all workstreams so progress is visible and regular.
• Find and clear bottlenecks so initiatives move from idea and approval into real implementation.
• Build trusted relationships with senior ministry officials and coordinate across ministries, state governments, public institutions, financial institutions and implementation partners.
• Prepare senior level meetings and turn those discussions into clear decisions and follow-up actions.
• Manage and mentor the ministry programme management unit team, holding a high bar for rigour, ownership and delivery.

Requirements

• 8 to 10 years of professional experience.
• Background in management consulting, strategy, transformation, public policy, economic development or a similar problem-solving environment.
• Proven ability to own complex programmes end to end, from defining the problem and designing the solution through to stakeholder agreement and implementation.
• Strong stakeholder management skills.
• The maturity to work with senior government officials, business leaders, financial institutions and subject experts.
• Strong quantitative skills.
• Comfort moving between policy, strategy and implementation work.
• Experience leading and mentoring a small team.
• Ability to write clear workplans and hold people to milestones and deliverables.
• An entrepreneurial way of working, suited to an early stage organisation.
• Genuine interest in rural economic development and government-led transformation.
• Willingness to be based in Delhi.
• An MBA or postgraduate degree from a leading institution is preferred but not mandatory.

Benefits

• Lead a national engagement with a central ministry, with direct access to senior decision makers.
• Work on problems that shape incomes for rural households across India.
• Build and mentor your own team inside a growing organisation.
• Learn across agriculture, rural enterprise, finance, skilling and migration in one role.
• Join an early stage organisation incubated by The Convergence Foundation, with room to shape how the work is done.

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