Associate Director, Prize, Livelihood Ecosystem

Location: Bangalore, India (significant domestic travel required) Engagement type: Consultant, engaged for the duration of the project

About the^delta (https://thedelta.org.in/): At the^delta, we back founders building scalable pathways to unlock stable economic opportunities for people and in places where they are needed the most. Through incubation, incentive challenges, enabling ecosystems and catalytic capital, we support founders in turning promising ideas into lasting impact.
Aboutthe^delta Prize (https://thedelta.org.in/prize/): the^delta Prize is the^delta's incentive-challenge program, designed to concentrate capital, talent and attention against some of India's most persistent structural problems. The Prize currently runs across three verticals: Climate Futures, Future of Women in Work, and Future Enterprises.
About Future Enterprises: Future Enterprises is the^delta's vertical dedicated to India's MSME sector, spanning nano and subsistence enterprises through to small and medium firms ready for productivity, quality and growth. The vertical's mandate is to identify, incubate and scale solutions to the sector's most persistent structural barriers, working across government, capital, technology and civil society partners. Its flagship project, described below, is AI for MSMEs – a national initiative in partnership with a leading global funder – alongside a growing pipeline of future MSME-focused work.
About AI for MSMEs (flagship project): AI for MSMEs is a national initiative unlocking AI-led growth for India's MSME sector, built AI-first and run across two connected tracks and a horizontal convening layer:
- Track 1: Grand Challenges – four incentive-driven challenges concentrating catalytic capital against persistent MSME bottlenecks: Ease of Business, Building Discoverability for MSMEs, Strengthening MSME Product Quality, and Unlocking Capital & Credit
- Track 2: The Platform – a single, open, AI-first workforce readiness and career pathways platform connecting young people and job seekers to skilling, apprenticeships and jobs, with particular attention to the talent needs of MSMEs
- Convening and Ecosystem Build – a horizontal track running alongside both, building a permanent national convening architecture that brings entrepreneurs, AI builders, government, capital providers and researchers together around the evidence each track produces
The initiative runs over three years, across prize-based challenges, platform development, and ecosystem convening.
Who are we solving for? India's MSMEs – from nano and subsistence enterprises seeking stability and formal visibility, to small and medium firms ready for productivity, quality and growth – alongside the young people and job seekers the workforce platform will connect to skilling and employment.
What are we solving for? India's MSME sector is held back by four interconnected barriers: enterprises cannot navigate compliance or scheme eligibility without intermediaries; quality deficits and invisibility to organised buyers lock them out of higher-value markets; skilling is supply-led while enterprise demand for talent goes unmet; and cash-based operations leave no underwritable signal for formal credit. AI for MSMEs, the vertical's flagship project, uses AI, prize-based incentives and open infrastructure to address these barriers at national scale, alongside further work the vertical will take on over time.
Role and Responsibility: What will you do? This is a Business Unit head mandate, not a caretaker role. The Associate Director owns the Future Enterprises vertical end to end: setting its direction, building its team, and delivering its current flagship project, AI for MSMEs, alongside the pipeline of MSME-focused work that follows it. AI for MSMEs alone spans two tracks, a horizontal convening layer, and a national footprint, with a mandate to move the needle for India's 88 million MSMEs. The role reports directly into the^delta's senior leadership, with full ownership of execution on the ground.
The^delta is looking for someone with the instincts of a founder: someone who has built a team, a product and a market position before, and can do it again here, inside a mission-driven organisation with serious capital and serious partners behind it. This is a senior mandate suited to a small pool of candidates with the specific combination of experience described below.
- Set the strategy and own outcomes for the Future Enterprises vertical end to end, with AI for MSMEs as the current flagship project
- Run the vertical like a Business Unit: make the calls, own the trade-offs, and hold single-point accountability for what gets built and shipped
- Build and lead a high-performing team from scratch, hiring both Senior Managers and the wider Associate bench, and set a structure that lets the team move fast
- Oversee the design and launch of the Grand Challenges across all four focus areas, working closely with the Senior Manager, Challenges
- Oversee the build and launch of the AI-first workforce readiness and career pathways platform, working closely with the Senior Manager, Platform and Convening
- Bring together a large and varied set of stakeholders – government ministries, technology partners, financial institutions, industry bodies, and civil society – and coalesce them around a single direction
- Operate fluently across technology, economics and public policy, moving comfortably between (for example) an AI product roadmap, India's MSME credit gap, and the levers available within state government schemes
- Serve as the public face of the Future Enterprises vertical and its flagship project at national forums, ecosystem convenings and with funder leadership
- Hold the evidence bar high: ensure challenge design, platform rollout and every major decision is grounded in validated problem research, not assumption
- Own the reporting and governance rhythm end to end, for the^delta's leadership and for external partners
What success looks like in year one:
- The workforce readiness platform is scoped, resourced and formally kicked off
- The full Future Enterprises team is hired, onboarded and functioning, including both Senior Managers and supporting Associate-level staff on AI for MSMEs
- The Grand Challenges are designed and launched across the four focus areas, with clear evaluation and selection processes in place
- A genuinely broad stakeholder base, spanning government, capital, technology and civil society, is actively engaged and moving in the same direction
- Governance and reporting rhythms are established and running smoothly across both tracks
Who are we looking for in this role? This role calls for founder-grade experience: someone who has taken an ambiguous mandate from zero to a running, functioning operation before, whether inside a large organisation, a start-up, or a venture of their own. It is a narrow brief, and the^delta is looking for a precise match rather than a broad field of applicants.
- 15–20 years of experience, with substantive exposure to the MSME sector and to AI-enabled products or programmes
- Genuine fluency in technology: able to engage credibly on AI products, platforms and technical feasibility
- A strong command of economics in the Indian context, structural issues in the MSME sector, and how public policy moves in practice
- A demonstrated track record of operationalising at scale: standing up large teams, coordinating diverse stakeholders, and converging many voices into one coherent plan
- Experience leading large, complex programmes on tight timelines, in either the social impact or corporate sector, with some social impact experience required
- The instincts of a Business Unit head: comfortable owning outcomes, comfortable making the call, and comfortable being accountable for both
- Composure operating in a high-ambiguity, fast-moving environment, while maintaining rigour on delivery and evidence
Non-negotiable: demonstrated experience leading a large-scale programme against a tight delivery timeline.
We aspire to be an inclusive and diverse organisation and encourage qualified individuals, irrespective of their religion, caste, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or any other dimension of identity, to apply.