Senior Programme Manager – Nutrition

1. POSITION VACANT: Senior Programme Manager – Nutrition, Large Philanthropic Organisation, Mumbai

2. ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND:

Our client is a respected philanthropic organisation with a vision of advancing humanitarian values and nation-building. The organisation drives social and economic development across India by focusing on health, education, livelihoods, water and sanitation, social inclusion, environment, and disaster response.

Our client’s mission is to empower underserved communities through innovative programmes and strategic collaborations with governments, civil society, and global partners, creating sustainable impact aligned with national priorities and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

3. JOB DESCRIPTION/ RESPONSIBILITIES:

Reporting to the Head – Nutrition, the Senior Programme Manager – Nutrition (SPMN) shall lead the design, expansion, and management of the organisation’s nutrition initiatives across India. The role combines strategic vision with technical expertise, ensuring programmes are evidence-based, scalable, and impactful. Acting as both strategist and implementer, the incumbent shall drive partnerships, oversee grants, and generate knowledge products that influence practice and policy. With a focus on improving nutrition outcomes for vulnerable communities, this role demands strong leadership, cross-sectoral collaboration, and the ability to translate research and innovation into sustainable programmes.

The role requires a senior nutrition professional who can operate at portfolio level, contribute to programme strategy and design, and engage credibly with senior internal and external stakeholders, while also ensuring disciplined programme and grant management.

The incumbent must understand the organisation’s role as a philanthropy and grant-making institution, and be able to support, guide, co-design, evaluate and fund partner-led interventions, rather than approach the role as a direct implementation position.

Key Responsibilities:

(A) Strategy:

(1) Contribute towards reviewing and updating strategy from time to time in consultation with the Theme Head, Senior Advisor and Head of Programme. This will necessitate landscaping and situation analysis, need-gap assessment of nutrition, health and inter-related domains by conducting background desk research and real-life ground assessments and identifying potential needs;

(2) Contribute to the expansion of the organisation’s nutrition programme with a focus on high-priority geographies;

(3) Contribute to strategising internal collaborations with other themes such as health or education within the organisation;

(4) Develop comprehensive programme plans, delivery models, monitoring frameworks and scale-up roadmaps for new and existing nutrition initiatives and programmes;

(5) Identify and initiate strategic nutrition partnerships with like-minded stakeholders;

(6) Initiate, support and deliver on any high-priority assignments as mandated by the organisation.

(7) Contribute analytically and strategically to programme direction, rather than only support implementation of approved interventions.

(B) Technical:

(1) Review latest and best practices in nutrition and offer thought leadership on nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programme and research development as per the organisation’s vision and strategy. The candidate shall formulate problem statements from time to time;

(2) Adopt best practices and apply these in programme design and management, and promote cross-sectoral linkages, cross-theme linkages and integration of cross-cutting issues;

(3) Build a pipeline of proposals for developing the nutrition portfolio in alignment with thematic strategy and multi-year grant-making goals. Co-create concepts and proposals for shaping initiatives with potential partners. Develop and float RFPs and work in evaluations of submitted proposals;

(4) Undertake comprehensive evaluation of relevant concepts and proposals for grant-making at regular intervals. Engage and involve external experts in the evaluation process as per the organisation’s norms;

(5) Assess proposals not only for technical merit, but also for operational feasibility, ground readiness, financial logic, cost-effectiveness and likely results;

(6) Lead and organise sectoral meetings, roundtables, consultations, and workshops as per plan;

(7) Develop and execute monitoring, learning and evaluation frameworks to develop innovative and/or tested theories of change for effective and feasible models.

(C) Programme Management:

(1) Independently manage different complex programmes and initiatives. This shall include end-to-end responsibility from onboarding grants, management and closure, adhering to processes, monitoring and supervision of grants/programmes, and offering support to grantees. Ensure timely reports and fund disbursals; This includes critical monitoring that goes beyond routine field visits and reports, with timely identification of red/yellow flags and basic programme-finance signals such as utilisation, cash-flow or budget patterns, in collaboration with finance colleagues;

(2) Identify learnings and lessons from projects and initiatives and develop knowledge products;

(3) Work in collaboration with other themes and cross-functional units such as strategy, grant management, finance, legal, partnership and communications, as and when required and assigned;

(4) Create high-quality content for mixed audiences, such as case studies, reports, concept notes, pitch decks, articles/ blog posts, etc.;

(5) Develop annual work plans and budgets collaboratively;

(6) Manage relationships with respective grantees and partners;

(7) Liaise and serve as a key point of contact with stakeholders including government and other partners.

(D) Key Stakeholders:

(1) Relationship within the organisation: Theme Heads, Function Heads and departmental teams;

(2) Relationship outside the organisation: Government officials and applicant organisations.

4. QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE AND COMPETENCIES:

Qualifications

Applicants must have a PhD, Master’s or PG Diploma in Public Health Nutrition, Global Health, Public Health, Food and Nutrition Policies and Programmes, Public Policy, Development Studies and related disciplines; or an MD in Community Health with interest in nutrition.

Experience

(1) About 10-15 years of experience in public health nutrition, nutritional biology, food and related programme development, research and policy;

(2) Candidates should be able to demonstrate experience in shaping or strengthening programme strategy, designing scalable interventions, developing theories of change/results frameworks, and translating evidence into programme decisions;

(3) Prior experience in philanthropy and grant-making will be an asset;

(4) Experience in research and programme evaluation will be essential;

(5) Experience in landscaping and gap analysis, curating problem statements, theory of change, logical framework analysis or results framework is strongly desirable;

(6) Selected experience in food systems, supply chain, logistics and solutioning around gaps and needs related to the triple burden of malnutrition, including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight/ overnutrition, will be an advantage;

(7) Programme and grant management exposure and past experience in budget management is important;

(8) Experience in partnerships and relationship management with diverse stakeholders;

(9) Experience in analytical writing, including proposal notes, publications, technical papers, and presentations, as well as external representation, will be an added advantage.

Skills and Competencies

(1) Problem solving, particularly in public health and nutrition;

(2) Data and innovation orientation;

(3) Strategic thinking and planning;

(4) Ability to move comfortably between field realities, evidence, programme architecture and leadership-level decision-making;

(5) Agility and adaptability to organisation-level changes; including comfort with evolving institutional strategies and ways of working;

(6) Planning, organising, leading and supervising; with the maturity to function as a dependable second line of leadership when required;

(7) High integrity, ethical, responsible and accountable;

(8) Deep commitment, passion and experience in the social development sector, along with domain knowledge in nutrition. Public health competence is valuable;

(9) Good understanding and experience of using theory of change-based programme design;

(10) Skilled in proposal assessment and evaluation;

(11) Excellent communication skills with command over spoken and written English and Hindi; including the ability to prepare cogent evidence-based notes and present/defend recommendations before senior internal and external stakeholders;

(12) Knowledge of field realities and social complexities with a focus on communities is essential;

(13) Proactive, self-starter, who can work independently and collaboratively; with a go-getter orientation and the ability to reach out to internal colleagues, external experts and sector peers when shaping or evaluating ideas;

(14) Team player and collaborative with good interpersonal skills;

(15) Proficient in computer skills, including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SPSS, Google Suite, etc.;

(16) Respect and practice diversity, equity and inclusion.

5. COMPENSATION OFFERED:

The compensation offered for the position is competitive and commensurate with experience and salary history.

6. LOCATION & NATURE OF APPOINTMENT:

(1) Location: Mumbai (mandatory travel to different locations in the country, including remote areas, at least 10-15 days in a month);

(2) Nature of Appointment: Fixed-term employment for three years.

7. REFERENCE: SPMN-LPO

8. APPLICATION PROCESS:

Eligible candidates interested in this position are requested to apply at the earliest:

Last Date to Apply: July 25, 2026

Our client is an equal opportunity employer and encourages candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply. All employment decisions are based on organisational needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications without regard to race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, age, or sexual orientation.