Wadhwani Foundation
About Wadhwani Foundation:
Mission: Accelerating economic development in emerging economies through high-value job creation Objectives: Enabling the creation of 10M jobs and placement of 25M by 2030 across 20-25 emerging economies.
Wadhwani Foundation is a not-for-profit with the primary mission of accelerating economic development in emerging economies by driving large-scale job creation through entrepreneurship, innovation and skills development. Founded in 2000 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, today the Foundation is scaling impact in 25 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America through various Initiatives. More details on the various programs at the end of the document.
Our Culture:
WF is a global not-for-profit, and works like a start-up, in a fast-moving, dynamic pace where change is the only constant and flexibility is the key to success. Three mantras that we practice across job roles, levels, functions, programs and initiatives, are Quality, Speed, Scale, in that order.
We are an ambitious and inclusive organization, where everyone is encouraged to contribute and ideate. We are intensely and insanely focused on driving excellence in everything we do. We want individuals with the drive for excellence, and passion to do whatever it takes to deliver world class outcomes to our beneficiaries. We set our own standards often more rigorous than what our beneficiaries demand, and we want individuals who love it this way.
We have a creative and highly energetic environment – one in which we look to each other to innovate new solutions not only for our beneficiaries but for ourselves too. Open to collaborate with a borderless mentality, often going beyond the hierarchy and siloed definitions of functional KRAs, are the individuals who will thrive in our environment. This is a workplace where expertise is shared with colleagues around the globe.
Individuals uncomfortable with change, constant innovation, and short learning cycles and those looking for stability and orderly working days may not find WF to be the right place for them. Finally, we want individuals who want to do greater good for the society leveraging their area of expertise, skills and experience. The foundation is an equal opportunity firm with no bias towards gender, race, colour, ethnicity, country, language, age and any other dimension that comes in the way of progress. Join us and be a part of us!
Job Description:
Role Context:
Business leader with proven track record in driving skilling initiatives across the nation and working with different stakeholders like Government, Vocational Education & Skill Development institutes, & Employers.
Experience in identifying, launching and growing new business opportunities & delivering the expected outputs and outcomes.
Responsibilities and Duties:
- Drive the national initiative on Skilling
- Drive the supply & demand side for the initiative nationally
- Drive and nurture the business in the existing and new accounts
- Responsible for driving the outcomes and outputs from the beneficiaries
- Responsible for identifying and implementing new (tech enabled) biz models in the initiative
- Team building & management skills
- Build and nurture the various networks required for the initiative (Employer, Trainers, Mentors)
Skills & Experience:
- 20-25 years of experience in B2C, education/skilling ecosystem
- Experience with VTP/VTI Eco system, Vocational Education/Skilling sector and work experience with Govt. agencies
- Strategic/Innovative thinker, Business acumen and Analytical rigor
- Attention to details & Data Analytics capability
- Tech and scale oriented, Ensure the usage of the technology platform and think through how to leverage technology based tools / Portal for knowledge and information to begin with - evaluate existing portals + identify key required functions to serve our audience.
- Drive team to meet objectives
- Ability to work and make decisions in an ambiguous environment
- Business development experience with account management expertise
- Complex problem solving skills & Sense of urgency & Decision maker, Skill to know when to expedite and when decelerate if quality is suffering
- Open to extensive travel
- Good Academic background
Various Programs at Wadhwani Foundation:
- Wadhwani Advantage: Accelerating the growth of tens of thousands of SMEs by providing personalized, on-demand knowledge and consulting resources through an AI-enabled mobile platform to create millions of new jobs.
- Wadhwani Entrepreneur: Inspiring, educating, and enabling Startup entrepreneurs
- Wadhwani Venture Fastrack: Maximizes success rates of early-stage startups with enhanced business traction and funding opportunities
- Wadhwani NEN: Empowers students with knowledge and skills through Courses and Startup Labs to create high-potential startups
- Wadhwani Inspire: Establishes a nationwide culture of entrepreneurship
- Wadhwani Opportunity: Empowering millions of students with 21st century employability skills that drive family supporting wages.
- Wadhwani AI (a partner program): A first-of-its-kind AI research institute in the world – a non-profit dedicated exclusively to applying AI for social good.
- Wadhwani Catalyst: Invest in high quality entrepreneurs with scalable business models across emerging markets, with a focus in India. The fund will catalyse businesses across sectors, with the overall objective of accelerating economic development by creating livelihoods/ jobs.
- Wadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy (WITP): Support government and civil society at large with the dual mission of – (1) Providing information, insights, and recommendations for the application of technology for policy making, policy implementation, and policy outcomes measurement. (2) Creating a Technology-focused Training Academy for upskilling policy makers, bureaucrats and technocrats with relevant technologies and the application of the same to their respective ministries and missions.
