State Lead, Lead Exposure

Overview

WJCF is an Indian non-profit organisation committed to saving lives by reducing the burden of disease and strengthening government-owned, high-quality health systems. Since 2007, WJCF has combined data-driven approaches and deep public health expertise with strong government partnerships to design, implement, and scale solutions across India’s national and state health programmes. We work for and at the service of governments — supporting the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and State Departments of Health to build systems that are strong, sustainable, and led by Indian institutions.

As an Indian organisation, WJCF brings an unmatched depth of contextual understanding of India’s health system architecture, policy landscape, and implementation realities across diverse geographies and population groups. This local institutional credibility, combined with global technical rigour, is central to WJCF’s effectiveness as a partner to governments and donors.

Our work is built around four complementary roles: as a Trusted Government Partner, co-designing programmes and strengthening health system architecture; as an Operational Partner, translating strategies into effective on-the-ground delivery; as a Market Shaper, improving the availability and affordability of health commodities; and as an Ecosystem Catalyst, convening governments, development partners, academia, and the private sector to drive solutions at scale.

WJCF’s programme portfolio spans thematic areas like hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, vector-borne diseases), syphilis, cervical cancer, diabetes, maternal and childhood anaemia, immunisation, under-5 diarrhoea and pneumonia, sexual and reproductive health, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri – Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), hypoxemia and oxygen, safe drinking water, sickle cell disease, presbyopia, lead poisoning, and cross cutting thematic areas like AI and Health, integrated disease surveillance, and climate and health. We currently support programmes across 19 states and union territories, with teams working at national, state, district, and sub-district levels.

Our people are our greatest asset. WJCF brings together a talented, diverse team of professionals from public health, analytics, consulting, healthcare, the development sector, and academia, all united by a shared commitment to improving health outcomes for the people of India. We are entrepreneurial, action-oriented, and deeply grounded in the communities and systems we work in. Our field teams collectively bring hundreds of years of experience managing public health programmes across the country.

WJCF collaborates with a range of international and domestic partners and donors to advance its mission, including an affiliation with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a global health organisation with which WJCF shares a common mission and values.

Programme Overview

Lead poisoning is one of India's most significant and most solvable public health challenges. India bears the world's highest burden of childhood lead poisoning, with over 275 million children carrying blood lead levels above 5 µg/dL; the national average is 6.2 µg/dL and 23 States exceed the threshold (NITI Aayog and CSIR review, 2022). Lead exposure causes irreversible neurological damage in children, contributes to an estimated one million cardiovascular deaths annually in adults (Larsen et al., 2023), and generates compounding intergenerational risks.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), as the designated national focal agency under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, is establishing the National Biomonitoring Programme for Chemical Toxicants (NBPCT). WJCF is embedding a Technical Support Unit (TSU) nationally and a state-level teams in select states. The state teams will work alongside the State Health Department, the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB), and allied departments to build the governance architecture, program roadmap, set up an inter-departmental coordination mechanism, develop state-adapted protocols, and operationalise all NBPCT program activities.

Position Summary

WJCF is seeking a highly motivated, entrepreneurial professional with strong credentials and exceptional stakeholder-management skills for the role of State Lead, Lead Exposure. The State Lead will own WJCF's engagement in in the State- building the relationships, governance mechanisms, and technical products for the program.

The role requires developing a deep understanding of the state's health system architecture, pollution control and environmental regulatory machinery, budgeting cycles, and political economy, and use that to convert a nascent national programme into a functioning state response. The State Lead will work across departments that do not routinely work together and will need the policy acumen to navigate a complex multi-stakeholder environment

The incumbent will function under the programmatic guidance of the State Health Department. The ideal candidate should have exceptional interpersonal skills, be able to work independently and comfortably in ambiguity, and have a strong commitment to excellence.

Location: Thiruvananthapuram (at the Directorate of Health Services)

Travel: to program districts within Kerala, and occasionally to New Delhi

Responsibilities

Government Engagement and State Governance

• Lead WJCF's engagement with state government stakeholders on lead exposure, and secure alignment on the programme's priorities, workplan, and proposed new initiatives.
• Build and maintain relationships with senior officials across the Department of Health & Family Welfare, NHM, the State Pollution Control Board, and the Departments of Environment, Industries, Mines, Labour and Food Safety.
• Support the state in constituting a task force on lead exposure. Convene inter-departmental meetings, drive agreement on priority actions, and establish a routine review and follow-up cadence.
• Conduct a state governance and system gap assessment and use the findings to shape the state workplan.

Programme Management, Learning and Partnerships

• Lead day-to-day programme implementation at state level – planning and on-ground roll-out of activities- in coordination with the national TSU and State Health Department
• Manage and mentor the state team, including the Senior Analyst, and build their capability to engage government counterparts independently.
• Maintain workplan trackers and milestone dashboards, and prepare high-quality progress reports, briefing notes, and strategy documents for government counterparts and donors
• Identify programmatic, operational, and political risks to implementation, and work with programme leadership to design and execute mitigation plans.
• Coordinate with development partners active in the state, academic and research institutions as needed.
• Represent WJCF in state-level technical working groups, review meetings, and forums, and contribute state learnings to national workshops and peer-learning exchanges.

Technical Products, Protocols and Capacity Building

• Lead the adaptation of national protocols to the state context, and support their validation with technical working groups and technical experts.
• Drive the process to formalise state operational guidelines, and oversee subsequent capacity-building for clinicians, laboratory professionals, SPCB staff, frontline workers, and district health staff.
• Contextualise and develop state-specific IEC and training materials from nationally developed content.

Surveillance and Data Systems

• Map state laboratory and treatment capacity; identify infrastructure and human resource gaps.
• Support the integration of chemical toxicant surveillance data from the state into the Integrated Health Information Portal (IHIP)
• Oversee the design and use of state dashboards and analytical products that support state decision-making
• Consolidate programme monitoring data, verify completeness and quality with district counterparts for for integration into national dashboards. 

District-level engagement

• Secure District Collector level ownership, leverage existing convergence platforms like the District Health Society, District Mineral Foundation, to drive program activities in identified priority districts
• Build and sustain relationships with senior district administration and allied counterparts to align health, environment, and industry mandates for program objectives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in public health, environmental health, public policy, health management, development studies, management, or a related field, with a minimum of 7 years of relevant work experience in a demanding, results-oriented environment.
• Demonstrated experience working with state government stakeholders and strong familiarity with the Indian public health system, including NHM structures, budgeting and planning cycles.
• Proven experience managing multi-stakeholder coordination - technical working groups, inter-departmental committees, and development partners
• Strong analytical capability: ability to absorb and synthesise epidemiological evidence, policy documents, and programme data into clear recommendations and high-quality written outputs.
• Advanced proficiency in project and programme management tools and in maintaining complex accountability trackers and dashboards.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and mentor a team
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and Hindi. Preference for candidates versed in local languages/dialects.
• Willingness to travel extensively within and outside the programme state and districts.

Preferred

• Experience in environmental health, chemical toxicants, pollution control, or occupational health programme areas.
• Prior experience in a secretariat or TSU role supporting a government programme.

Last Date to Apply: 28 November, 2026