Senior Project Lead

Position: Senior Project Lead - EdTech Evidence & Insights

Location: Delhi

Founded in 2012, Central Square Foundation is a non-profit philanthropic foundation working with the vision of ensuring quality school education for all children in India. We believe that effective foundational learning is essential for better learning outcomes for all children in school. Development of foundational literacy and numeracy skills by Class 3 can help children progress to higher levels of learning and is an essential building block in a child's life.

We are driven by our mission to enable the school education system to adopt solutions that are scalable, sustainable and effective, so that all children get equal access to opportunities needed for leading a better life. CSF has prioritised 4 critical areas of work: Foundational Literacy & Numeracy (FLN); EdTech; Early Childhood Education (ECE); and Schools Governance.

Our EdTech vertical leverages technology to enhance teaching and learning through student-focused and teacher-directed interventions. We aim to strengthen India's EdTech ecosystem by generating evidence on what works, how it works, and how to scale effectively, while supporting product innovation, building public goods, and influencing education policy.

Read more about our work here:

About EdTech at CSF

CSF's EdTech initiative focuses on leveraging technology to enhance teaching and learning, both in classrooms and at home, through student-focused and teacher-directed interventions. Our goal is to improve foundational learning in primary grades and provide remediation support in middle school using evidence-based, scalable technology solutions.

Since 2012, CSF has played a pivotal role in shaping India's EdTech ecosystem by bridging demand and supply, backed by rigorous research. We drive impact by:

• Supporting EdTech organisations to build contextually relevant, pedagogically sound products for low-income learners.
• Generating evidence on what works, how it works, and how to scale effective EdTech interventions.
• Partnering with governments to implement EdTech solutions and influence policy.
• Funding public goods to drive innovation and strengthen the ecosystem.

In the last five years, CSF has collaborated with 15+ EdTech organisations, 11+ state governments, and leading academic institutions, reaching 2.5 million learners across India. Join us to shape the future of learning for India's childrenand help build an EdTech ecosystem that is evidence-driven, tech-enabled, scalable and equitable.

Position summary

As Senior Project Lead - EdTech Evidence & Insights, you will lead CSF's evidence-generation, learning agenda, and communication for EdTech and AI-led initiatives. You will program manage a portfolio of research and evaluation studies that measure impact, cost-effectiveness, and scalability of technology-enabled learning solutions and liaise with CSF's internal research and evaluation unit (RMEAL) for the same. The role combines strategic leadership, sound awareness of research and evaluation, evidence communication, and ecosystem influence, driving how CSF and its partners use data and evidence to inform program, policy, and investment decisions. You will also represent CSF externally by communicating evidence and shaping India's broader discourse on evidence-based education technology. You will report to the Senior Partner EdTech, AI and Evidence, and collaborate closely with CSF's RMEAL (Research, Monitoring, Evaluation, Assessments, and Learning), Government Partnerships, and Communications central teams

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to

Evidence Strategy & Thought Leadership

• Lead the design and execution of CSF's EdTech Evidence and Insights Strategy for
• Define research priorities, frameworks, and standards for generating credible, actionable evidence across product, program, and ecosystem levels.
• Represent CSF in sectoral forums, advisory panels, and publications to build salience for evidence-driven EdTech policy and practice.

Evaluation Design, Quality, and Delivery

• Coordinate and align with RMEAL on the design and delivery of rigorous evaluations (RCTs, quasi-experimental, mixed-methods, qualitative) across multiple geographies and interventions.
• Ensure all studies meet high standards of methodological rigor, ethical data use, and timely dissemination.
• Translate complex evidence into actionable insights and decision notes for governments, funders, and EdTech ecosystem actors.

Insights Translation & Knowledge Dissemination

• Develop frameworks to translate evaluation findings into learning products, such as policy briefs, evidence syntheses, dashboards, and playbooks.
• Partner with state education departments and ecosystem stakeholders to embed learnings into strategy, policy, and implementation.
• Lead cross-functional learning reviews and retrospectives to improve organizational decision-making and program design.

Stakeholder & Ecosystem Engagement

• Cultivate high-trust relationships with state and national government counterparts, research collaborators, and donor partners.
• Broker collaborations across EdTech innovators, academic institutions, and global evidence initiatives.
• Build CSF's position as a thought leader in EdTech evidence and responsible AI for education.
• Ensure all internal and external reporting requirements are met for CSF's Board, donors and senior stakeholders

Team Leadership & Capacity Development

• Lead and mentor a team of project managers, evaluation specialists, and analysts.
• Build internal capabilities on evidence-informed decision-making, cost-effectiveness, and data-driven program design.
• Contribute to organization-wide learning and development initiatives and talent planning.
• Lead and manage other workstreams for as per vertical requirements

Budget & Performance Management

• Own the annual and multi-project budget for the Evidence & Insights portfolio.
• Track ROI on learning investments and ensure timely delivery and utilization of evidence outputs.
• Produce high-quality reports and presentations for CSF leadership, funders, and boards.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Master's degree in Economics, Public Policy, Education or a related field.
• 10 to 14 years of progressive experience in programme design & management, management consulting, impact programs, or large grant portfolios, with experience or keen interest and willingness to deep dive into evaluation, evidence, and impact measurement. At least 4 years in a people-leadership role. 
• Proven ability to translate research into insights that influence strategy or policy.
• Experience managing multi-partner programs and high-performing teams.
• Strong spoken and written communication skills to engage senior/executive/external audiences.
• Demonstrated exposure and familiarity with EdTech, AI-enabled learning, or digital public infrastructure is highly desirable.
• Exceptional analytical, written, and verbal communication skills; comfortable presenting to CXO and government audiences.
• Experience in managing senior stakeholder engagement both internally and externally.
• Demonstrated experience of managing projects end-to-end and also growing and managing high-performing teams.

Desired Qualities

• Passion for evidence-based education reform and technology for learning impact and equity.
• Entrepreneurial, self-directed, able to deal with ambiguity, and comfortable working in a fast-moving environment.
• Strong influencing skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders, and the ability to simplify research and make it more accessible and action-oriented for stakeholders.
• Learning agility and openness to frontier methods and technologies in evidence generation.

Compensation

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social-impact sector benchmarks, commensurate with experience.

Application Process

Interested candidates should submit a resume, a brief statement of interest (max 500 words), and two references through the CSF Careers Portal. Apply only if you can commit yourself to at least a three-year journey to materialise the EdTech strategy. Shortlisted applicants will complete a case exercise and participate in panel interviews.