Associate Director, Program Operations

Associate Director, Program Operations, AI Access Initiative (EAII Advisors)

Evidence Action · New Delhi, India · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-12

Workplace: on_site

Department: Programs

Description

About The AI Access Initiative (2AI)

We're at an inflection point in artificial intelligence – presenting both tremendous potential opportunity and risk for people in developing countries. AI capabilities are improving on a timescale measured in months, while development systems often move on timescales measured in decades. Much of the technology needed for positive impact exists today, but few organizations exist to bridge research, deployment, and scaled implementation: we must act now to ensure AI's benefits reach people in poverty in LMICs. 

Incubated at Evidence Action, we're scaling The AI Access Initiative, an organization focused on scaling AI-enabled 'big bets' to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of people in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We operate at the intersection of global development actors, top AI labs, and leading researchers to drive meaningful access to AI's benefits for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty globally. We create "public good," open-sourced playbooks, toolkits, and insights that define how to design and launch tractable and impactful AI-enabled programs. Given the scale of opportunity, we expect our portfolio to expand substantially, but to start, we're scaling two programs focused on AI in Agriculture and AI in Health.

• Agriculture: We have an ambitious goal to reach 100M+ farmers with AI-enabled weather forecasts, expand forecast R&D to generate novel forecasts, and build public and private sector (WhatsApp, telcos) delivery channels to deliver new, LLM-generated voice and image content that maximizes behavior change.  
• Health: Here, our initial goal is to scale AI-enabled clinical decision support to 20M+ people via telemedicine platforms, dramatically improving diagnosis and health outcomes at a national level. We are also planning to explore and test novel interventions for low-resource settings, including direct-to-consumer (DTC) health interventions. 

We are led by former Evidence Action CEO Kanika Bahl, a founding member of Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust, and advised by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer; Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic; and Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs for Alphabet and Google. This work builds on Evidence Action's track record reaching 530M+ people with cost-effective, evidence-based programs across 9 countries in Africa and Asia, with a focus on last-mile delivery.

About 2AI India and EAII Advisors

EAII Advisors, Evidence Action's technical partner in India, supports state governments in delivering evidence-based public health programs. Operating across 10 states, EAII Advisors provides technical assistance to ministries of health, education, water, and women and child development, reducing health burdens in impoverished communities and improving the long-term wellbeing of children and families.

2AI India is being incubated as a project within EAII Advisors, with plans to spin off into an independent entity at the end of this year. We are hiring a founding team: the first hires will shape the culture, establish the operating model, and own early wins before the organization scales.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Associate Director, Program Operations is the scale-up engine for the agriculture program. Reporting to the Program Director for Agriculture, this person owns the operational and logistical work that gets the program running on the ground: state-level setup, day-to-day government engagement, strategic work planning, and the hiring and onboarding of field and state staff as the program scales.

This is a founding role, and we are looking for someone genuinely energized by what AI can do for farmers. An agriculture-specific background is not required. We are looking for someone to bring operational excellence and relationship-building skills in the context of the Indian government. Strong values alignment, adaptability, and "get stuff done" energy is the primary filter for this role.

Delivery and Execution

• Gets the agriculture program running on the ground and keeps it running as the program grows and adapts.
• Turns program design into sequenced, resourced activity in each state.
• Solves logistical and operational problems as they arise, bringing a learning mindset and trying multiple approaches.

Work Plan Ownership

• Builds and owns the detailed work plans for the agriculture program, including milestones, dependencies, owners, and budgets.
• Manages multiple priorities across states and workstreams, plans work, and meets deadlines under a schedule that will shift.
• Keeps the Program Director and the wider team accurately informed on status, including what is at risk or off track and why.

National and State Government Interface

• Manages day-to-day engagement with national and state government counterparts and field officials, and builds strong working relationships.
• Sets up state-level operations, including office logistics, approvals, vendor arrangements, and the practical mechanics of working inside a state system.
• Anticipates counterpart needs, engages consistently, and holds partners to commitments without damaging the relationship.

Systems Building and Scaling

• Builds structured and right-sized systems and processes that can be replicated in the next state rather than rebuilt.
• Considers change management in implementation, balancing what the team and partners can absorb against the pace we need.
• Takes a pragmatic view of the cost and benefit of new systems, and does not over-engineer at this stage.

Team Growth

• Hires and onboards field and state-level staff as the program scales, and gets them productive quickly.
• Supports and develops the operational team, and manages delivery through people who do not report to them where needed.
• Fosters a strong, values-aligned culture as a leader across the organization.
• Willingness to roll-up sleeves and pitch in to the organization building activities required of a founding team.

Strategic Contribution

• Steps back from the tactical to understand the larger program logic, and helps the Program Director think through how operational realities should shape strategy.
• Supports team pivots to new ideas and approaches as we learn.

Disclaimer: The duties and responsibilities described are not a comprehensive list and additional tasks may be assigned to the employee from time to time.

Requirements

Essentials

• Relevant professional background: 7-9 years of experience in program operations, program management, or field delivery, ideally in international development, public health, or a comparable delivery-intensive setting in India.
• Experience in an organization that grew quickly and where systems had to be built while delivering.
• Delivery orientation above all: the kind of person whose colleagues stop checking on a thing once it is theirs. Comfortable acting even under uncertainty.
• Drive: goes above and beyond to reach a goal, and treats a setback as something to get around rather than something to escalate.
• Project management: holds many moving parts at once without dropping any, with a track record of complex multi-stakeholder work that actually landed on time.
• Government relationship skill: comfortable managing day-to-day relationships with state government counterparts, has succeeded in forging new relationships, and understands how decisions move through a state system.
• Field coordination: has run logistics in multi-state contexts, stays responsive when the plan changes mid-week, and is resourceful about the second and third approach if the first one fails.
• Systems building: has an instinct for the lean, right-sized process over the comprehensive one, and good judgment about when a fix should become a system and when it should stay a fix.
• Strategic lens: connects details to the big picture and back again, and can support program-level thinking rather than operating purely tactically.
• Flexibility: thrives in high-growth scenarios, is comfortable with shifting timelines and priorities, and adjusts quickly to new contexts.
• Hiring and people development: can recruit, onboard, and develop field and state-level staff, and can manage outside direct authority.
• Clear communication: gives an accurate read on status, bad news included, early and without spin.
• AI-forward: uses AI tools in their own work and is eager to experiment with them to make a small team go further.

What Success Looks Like

In the First 6 Months:

• The agriculture program has a live, maintained work plan that the team actually uses, and it reflects reality rather than intention.
• Operations are set up in the first program states, including the practical mechanics of working with the state government.
• You are the trusted day-to-day point of contact for state counterparts, and the Program Director can fully delegate many operational decisions.
• Early field activity is happening on schedule, and where challenges exist or the plan is not working, you have flagged clearly and early and proposed a fix.

Compensation

Competitive and commensurate with the individual's credentials, experience, and previous pay scale.

Benefits

EAII provides a comprehensive benefits package for employees. Benefits include:

• Comprehensive health insurance with IPD and OPD provisions
• Life and Accidental insurance
• PF, ESIC and Gratuity as per statutory requirements
• Generous leave
• Mental and physical wellbeing benefits
• Learning & Development benefits
• Avenues for engagement and recognition

Note: This role will be open for applications until 9 October, 2026. Please apply at your earliest convenience. We may close this search earlier than the specified date if we find the right fit. Due to the volume of applications received, we will only be able to contact shortlisted candidates.

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