Director - Communications

About This Job

The Akanksha Foundation

Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Work Mode: On-site

Industry: Non-profit Organizations, Education

Reports To: Chief of Development and Communications

About Akanksha

The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing children from low-income communities with high-quality, holistic education - enabling them to maximize their potential and transform their lives. Akanksha operates through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model in partnership with municipal governments across Urban Maharashtra.

Today, Akanksha runs 27 English-medium schools across Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur, reaching 14,600 students and employing 760+ educators. Its four core programs - the School Project, Alumni Support and Engagement (ASE), Project Setu, and Art for Akanksha (AFA) - collectively serve tens of thousands of children and young adults on their journey from early schooling to economic mobility.

Akanksha's 2031 aspiration is bold: to run 45–50 high-performing PPP schools serving 35,000 children directly, while enabling holistic outcomes for 250,000 children across 800-1000 government schools through Project Setu.

Position Summary

As the Director-Communications, you will be responsible for designing and executing Akanksha's Communications strategy which will include new promotion and marketing campaigns to create awareness about Akanksha and its School Project. You will also engage with, and support other teams at Akanksha to help them in executing their respective roles through external and internal communications.

Overview of the Team: 

The Communications team at Akanksha works with external stakeholders for PR and events and partners with internal teams to create the overall brand and communications strategies for the organization. The team manages content development for its reports and manages social media updates. The team is also responsible for creating content and videos that are made for promotions for all organization requirements that include PR, talent recruitment, donor communication, and internal meetings, retreats, and training programs.

Key Responsibilities:

Director - Communications will be the custodian of The Akanksha Foundation brand and will help shape everything from brand communications, marketing, events, PR, design to launching new and creative initiatives, in collaboration with various teams, that help strengthen and scale Akanksha's mission. They will also build a world-class team and strengthen operations to scale. Some responsibilities include:

Strategic: 

• Set strategic goals to strengthen the Digital Communications that is relevant in the regions that Akanksha operates in: Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur
• Build a high-performing team and oversee the team vision, goals, strategy, and annual operations plan

Partnerships: 

• Build strategic and effective online partnerships with a range of stakeholders and communicate powerful stories and build impactful narratives that will help advance our mission
• Identify and manage partnerships across brand, publicity, and outreach to support communication work, including but not limited to, graphic designers, video specialists,  advertising,  PR  agencies,  etc.

Operations: 

• Build awareness  through  social  media  (website,  LinkedIn,  Instagram,  etc),  events,  mass  media, and additional  channels  to  bring  onboard  new  donors,  grantees,  partners,  volunteers, and  talent
• Compilation of the organization's Annual Report by working with different departments
• Plan and execute Design, Social Media, and PR campaigns for Alumni Inductions, Akanksha Annual Days, Town Halls, and Special Akanksha Events
• Ensure content is curated and published on the CEOs social media, to further the goals of the organization's Vision and Mission
• Launch large  scale  initiatives  and  events,  in  partnership  with  verticals,  to  provide  avenues  for industry  leaders,  funders,  volunteers, and others to  engage  and  act  towards  the  foundation's  key  goals
• Collaborate  with  different teams on  an ongoing basis  to  listen  to  stories  and  develop  sharp  and action-driving  content  across  formats
• Generate creative  and  inspiring  assets  unique  to  The Akanksha Foundation that  can  be  leveraged  creatively  across  digital media  and  other  channels  overtime  to  advance  our  mission,  amplify  our  collective  impact,  provide visibility  to  our  donors
• Leverage social  media  -  paid  and  organic  -  in  creative  yet  focussed  ways  to  also  help  verticals  with hiring,  volunteering  opportunities,  launching  campaigns, and  more

Experience & Education Qualifications

• 10+ years of relevant work experience in Marketing and Communications roles
• Postgraduate in Marketing/Advertising/related fields
• Prior experience of working with, and managing a Marketing and Communications team in a deadline-oriented, target-driven environment
• Previous experience in a media- advertising agency or led a marketing/communications role in a large corporate.
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written with excellent interpersonal, public speaking, and presentation skills
• Proficiency in the use of the MS office toolkit 
• Ability to present complex ideas clearly and in an engaging manner 
• Strong project management skills and ability to pay attention to detail 
• Commitment to excellence and accuracy, with an ability to make decisions in a fast-paced environment
• Strong time management skills, a keen sense of urgency, and an ability to accommodate multiple projects simultaneously with tight deadlines
• Team management skills and ability to coordinate with different functional teams