Senior Manager, Program Operations

Position Overview:

The Senior Manager, Program Operations is a member of program operations team at the country office. This position will report directly to the Program Operations Director (POD). The Sr. Manager Operations will directly assist the Program Operations Director in ensuring smooth operations at the field level across 5-6 states and will be directly supervising the State Heads to accomplish the operations’ department goals. S/he will also be instrumental in coordinating with other departments at Country Office (CO) and Global Office (GO) level. This position also involves frequent travelling to the field offices, as well as regular interaction with the education officials, partners, school administrators, teacher and students.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Management, Planning and Coordination:

• Develop a good understanding of all RtR programs, their inter-linkages in view of the convergence.
• Adept planning, meticulous monitoring, and comprehensive evaluation of programs at all levels across multiple states, efficiently navigating projects from inception to completion. Lead the efforts to create a tracker of the states allocated and update it regularly, including procurement.
• Coordinating and following up with the state teams and admin. department on various reports, ICs, and budget related issues.
• Providing support to OPs team in tracking ICs and corresponding expenses at the state level, while working closely with the allocated state teams.
• Possesses strong financial management expertise, including annual planning, budgeting, budget outlook, cash forecasting, and the ability to analyze and track budgets for various programs.
• Compiling and interpreting financial data, with the ability to identify instances of both under-spending and overspending.
• Coordinate with other program teams for timely redressal and mitigation of various operational issues.
• Coordinating with RM&E will study the analysis of Literacy and GEP data trends, identifying potential risks and deviations in implementation of program design. Will also look for and report the ineffective /inconsistent processes at field levels, and process improvement.
• Communicate and correspond with GO counterparts to seek highlight issues and seek clarification on various aspects of operations in the country.
• Helps developing systems to keep record of all the partner NGOs, and state level partnerships, do follow ups for the timely renewal of the partnership documents (agreements/MoUs).
• Innovate and create systems with POD that are easily adaptable at the field level, to increase operational efficiency of the organization.
• Identify implementation challenges, provide solutions or flag to Program Operations Director (POD) for redressal.
• Second line to the POD and represent POD in various meetings as and when required.
• Establish regular communication channels with all departments to facilitate effective coordination and implementation.
• Collaborate with state heads, conducting monthly Operations calls for streamlined coordination and communication.
• Participate in trainings of Literacy Program and GEP Program.

Operation System Design:

• Help create systems to monitor operations in the allocated states besides keeping the IC’s updated. This may include, but not limited to, creation of calendars, trackers, toolkits, frameworks etc., with the help of concerned department.
• Responsible for improving operational efficiency on the field, by providing timely inputs, and improvement support at the state level through the help of state managers.
• Provide assistance and inputs to RM&E on need basis regarding improvement of process and program outcome monitoring.
• Coordinate with RM&E dept. in the analysis of Literacy & GEP data trends, identifying potential risks and deviations in implementation of program design.
• Keep track of progress towards agreed outcomes.

Reporting:

• In collaboration with the CO Literacy and GEP teams, analyze annual program goals and budgets to ensure alignment with organizational strategies and priorities.
• Lead and collaborates with the CO Literacy and GEP teams, on developing and providing oversight of the implementation calendar, budget and its guidelines (including contextualization budget), annual planning, HR structure, quarterly reporting, and overall tracking of program implementation and spending.
• Collect, collate CO and GO level reports (Monthly and quarterly) from allocated states and review; collaborate with RM&E team for final reporting.
• Help coordinate generation and documentation of best practices at the country and state level with the help of state managers.
• Generate independent reports on GSD to monitor program implementation, as well as perform data analysis.
• Providing inputs to various strategic documents at CO & GO level.
• Reviewing the monthly and quarterly program reports of GEP including dashboards and provide suggestions to concerned state teams and departments as and when required.
• Coordinating with the allocated states for the effective implementation of the PIM and to work in close coordination with state teams and departments.

Technical Assistance:

• Assist the POD and other teams in preparing proposals for technical assistance.
• Assist POD in planning and smooth implementation of technical assistance projects and provide timely feedback for process and program improvement.

External Coordination and Networking:

• Stay informed about trends in the fields of Education (early grade literacy, girl education and life skills, and Library) and use this information to assess and inform Room to Read’s Literacy program.
• Build partnerships with NGOs and other organizations with similar agenda as RtR, with the goal of becoming a key player in this community.
• Collaborates with the government to build support for early grade reading, life skills, library, in general and the RtR approach in particular.
• Effectively oversee senior team members at the state level, such as State Heads, Managers, and Officers, and possesses expertise in capacity building and team management.

Other:

• Participate in any other activities which may be required to be undertaken to fulfil the objectives of the organization.
• Perform other duties as assigned by POD.
• Undertake field visits as required, in consultation with the POD.
• Represent POD, in internal meetings, if required.
• Represent RtR at various platforms.
• Follow up on donor visits in various locations, in coordination with Communications and Dev team.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Master’s in education / social sciences / Social Work or equivalent.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience. Should have strong background in project management, encompassing planning, monitoring, and evaluating programs at all levels across
• multiple states, preferable education projects.
• Possesses strong financial management expertise, including annual planning, budgeting, budget outlook, cash forecasting, and the ability to analyze and track budgets for various programs.
• Excellent managerial and interpersonal skills, including skills of managing and mentoring people.
• Demonstrates excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Knowledge/ training in linguistics will be an added advantage.
• Should be willing to travel to various states for a minimum of 6-8 days per month.

Compensation:

Room to Read offers a competitive salary with excellent benefits. Benefits include a thirteenth month bonus, health insurance and a retirement plan. The non-monetary compensation includes a unique opportunity to be part of an innovative, meaningful, and rapidly growing organization that is changing transforming the lives of millions of children in developing countries on literacy and gender equality in education.

Room to Read is a child-safe organization. All personnel are expected to adhere to Room to Read’s Child Protection Policy and Child Protection Code of Conduct.