Senior Program Manager – Centre of Excellence

Senior Program Manager – Centre of Excellence
BigBet	Inclusive Bharat Collaborative (IBC)
Department	Centre of Excellence (CoE)
Reporting Manager	CoE Lead
Team	Collaborate with product, operations and functional teams for Education
Location	Assam/Chhattisgarh/Jharkhand/Odisha

Background and Context

Piramal Foundation envisions solving India’s most intractable problems through innovation, collaboration and ‘Sewa Bhaav’. We aim to build Bharat by driving leadership development, digitization, decentralization, and inclusion—led by women and youth— through reimagining systems, co-creating solutions, and driving sustainable progress.

Inclusive Bharat Collaborative (IBC), erstwhile Tribal Health Collaborative, is an initiative under the broader umbrella of the Piramal Foundation.

IBC envisions building an inclusive Bharat with Tribal and Indigenous communities by transforming their health and education ecosystems for equity, dignity, and lasting change.We strive to strengthen Tribal/Indigenous representation and ownership in shaping health and education systems through active citizenship and integration of indigenous knowledge in policy and practice.

With extensive experience in improving health outcomes in tribal-populated regions of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, IBC is now expanding its work in the education domain. It aims to realise its vision through the four Centres of Excellence (CoEs).

 

1. Centre for Early Indigenous Education: We envision a future where every tribal child grows up with joyful, identity-affirming early learning and proper nourishment. We work to integrate culturally rooted, multilingual, and community-led approaches into early education and nutrition systems.
2. Centre for Adaptive Youth Leadership: We aim to preserve and integrate tribal knowledge systems in the Public Education System (PES) towards creating culturally relevant and future-ready learning opportunities for tribal youth.
3. Centre for Cultural Diversity: We strive to build an education and health ecosystem that values cultural diversity. It works to make inclusion part of the public systems by bringing cultural understanding into teaching, training, and institutional practices.
4. Centre for Traditional Knowledge and Practices: We endeavor to institutionalize the knowledge, practices, and philosophies of tribal communities as legitimate, recognized, and valuable contributions to mainstream education and health.

 

Role Purpose

As Senior Program Manager – Product (Design & Development), you will drive the creation of context-specific, culturally rooted, and system-ready solutions within a CoE. In the formative phase, you will also support allied functions such as research documentation, field studies, and government engagement, until the verticals are fully staffed. This is a hands-on, intrapreneurial role that blends design thinking, community collaboration, and public systems integration.

Key Responsibilities

Product Design and Development (Core responsibility)

• Co-create educational, leadership, or health products contextualized to tribal communities (e.g., curriculum modules, learning spaces, capacity-building tools).
• Facilitate human-centered design workshops with educators, healers, youth, government actors, and community leaders.
• Develop prototypes, playbooks, and process frameworks with clear documentation and usability.
• Test and iterate products through demonstration sites and feedback cycles.
• Ensure products align with NEP 2020, policy frameworks, and departmental mandates for scale-readiness.

Support Research and MLE (Initial Phase Contribution)

• Collaborate with CoE Lead and MEL teams to plan small-scale field studies, learning assessments, and community insights.
• Help document tribal practices, pedagogies, and use-cases that inform product design.
• Track usage data, pilot performance, and generate user insights to refine tools.

Support State Engagement and Convergence (Initial Phase Contribution)

• Participate in meetings with SCERTs, Tribal Research Institutes, ICDS, and Education departments.
• Support the creation of concept notes, decks, and design materials for government co-creation.
• Represent the product logic in convergence discussions at the district/state level.

Candidate Profile

Educational Qualification

• Post-graduate Degree in Education, Design, Development Studies, Anthropology, Public Policy, or related disciplines.

Experience

• 8–10 years of work experience, with at least 3–5 years in program design, innovation labs, product development, or curriculum design.
• Experience working with historically marginalized communities, preferably in Tribal/Indigenous contexts.
• Familiarity with Public Systems (Education, Tribal Affairs, WCD) and public-sector partnerships.

Core Competencies

• Systems Thinking: Able to understand, build effective strategies and influence both community systems and public education system.
• Adaptive Leadership: Comfortable with ambiguity, skilled at iterative design and course-correction.
• Cultural Intelligence: Deep respect for and understanding of local knowledge systems and community dynamics.
• Stakeholder Management: Builds credibility with government, donors, and community actors alike.
• Communication and Storytelling: Translates complex insights into compelling narratives for diverse audiences.

Key Collaborators

Internal PF and IBC Leadership Other CoE Leads Central support functions: MEL, Communications, Partnerships

External Tribal/community institutions, leaders and knowledge-producers Academic and research institutions Government Departments, state and central Donor agencies and funding partners

Essential Mindsets

• Aspiration to create deep social impact, both scalable and sustainable in the education domain.
• Readiness to learn and unlearn while adapting to a dynamic work environment, and its needs.
• Willing to take up new and complex problems, and solve collaboratively as a team.

Application Process

Scan the QR or click on  https://forms.office.com/r/rnukR8BFiF

to submit your application

Reach out to us at: hr.ibc@piramalswasthya.org

Also refer to: https://www.piramalfoundation.org/

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