Entrepreneur-in-residence

**Background**

Urbanisation is intrinsic to development and often serves as a major driver of economic growth. As India reaches the tipping point of transitioning from a mostly rural to an urban society, the focus must be on ensuring the best opportunities for economic growth for all sections of the society. It is a matter of concern that despite huge investment, our cities still face many efficiency-and sustainability-related challenges. None of our cities feature among the top 50 cities in any global rankings. The need of the hour is incisive, insightful planning - in the absence of which neither investments nor actions would be able to yield long-term solutions. Unplanned urbanisation could result in serious downsides.

With this background, a prospective collective was seeded as a collaborative body with the aim of strengthening the civic, administrative, and political salience in urban governance within the country. It will look to foster inclusive, citizen-centric governance that can deepen relationships between the state agencies and its citizens by strengthening capacities, promoting transparency and institutional accountability.

**Participating organizations**

The membership of the collective currently comprises leaders of global think tanks, development consulting firms, public policy experts and top implementing agencies operating in the field of urban development.

**About the role**

ONI is looking to onboard an EIR who will act as the de-facto CEO of the collective. The role will be for a period of 12 months initially and can be renewed on mutual agreement. The individual will be responsible for all activities related to the membership. These responsibilities include but are not limited to
- **Designing and implementing strategy **of the collective in collaboration with the membership to ensure there is a long-term view of the challenge and the role of the collective.
- **Stakeholder management. **Engaging with policy experts, academics, state agencies, donors, ecosystem builders to drive consensus and facilitate decision making. To build deep relationships with partners to ensure that they bring their full abilities to create value for the collaborative.
- **Community Building. **Driving engagements within the membership and to grow the body by onboarding new members that can add value to the cause of the collective.
- **Organizational Building. **Designing and establishing operating processes that allows the membership to efficiently interface better grow in its journey from 0 to 1 and 1 to 10, setting up systems for knowledge management and reporting of the various activities of the collective.
- **Thought leadership. **Representing the collective in various forums, articulating the vision of the collective and building a narrative on the sector to showcase light on challenges, opportunities, trends and path-breaking innovations.
- **Fund-raising. **Driving interest among donors and other stakeholders and building a pipeline of perspectives for the collective to engage with.
- **Project / Program Management. **Designing and implementing interventions according to the gaps and opportunities identified through the discussions of the membership.

The right person for the role should have
- 10-15 years of experience either with social impact, business organizations and/or urban sector consultancies
- Demonstrated facilitative leadership by working with diverse stakeholders to achieve outcomes in a collaborative manner
- Prior experience in engaging deeply with social impact stakeholders including non-profits, social enterprises, governments and donors
- Existing network in the social impact sector among donors and non-profit organizations.
- Strong bias for action and demonstrated experience in setting up and driving initiatives to achieve adoption and scale.
- Strong strategy and problem-solving skills and the ability to frame key strategy questions for analysis and decision making.
- Experience in managing cross-functional teams and directing programs in a high-performing, entrepreneurial, outcome-focused, collaborative and agile environment.
- Prior experience in urban development is a must
- Advanced degree in development studies or MBA is preferred