Head of Communications

savelife foundation (slf)

Delhi, India

10-15 Years

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Posted 8 hours ago
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Job Description

Every day, roughly 500 Indians die on the country's roads. Road crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged 5–29, take overwhelmingly working-age men, and impact two in three low-income households that experience them. This is one of India's most neglected public health crises - and it is preventable.

For eighteen years, SaveLIFE Foundation has built the systems to change that. We are now entering the most ambitious phase of our work, and we are looking for a Head of Communications to shape how India, and the world, understand what it takes to end preventable road crash deaths.

About SaveLIFE Foundation

SaveLIFE Foundation is India's leading road safety systems reform organisation. We work at the intersection of policy, engineering, enforcement, trauma care, and data science to reduce road crash fatalities - not as a charitable project, but as a question of public health, governance, and equity.

Over the past 18 years, we have:

Led the campaign behind India's Good Samaritan Law (2016) and contributed to the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act (2019)
Reduced fatalities by 58% on the Mumbai–Pune Expressway, 65% on National Highway 48, and 45% on the Yamuna Expressway - validated by independent audit and adopted as a national highway safety standard by the Bureau of Indian Standards
Designed and now scale the Zero Fatality Corridor (ZFC) and Zero Fatality District (ZFD) - proven governance models that India's states and the central government are embedding into their own road safety architecture
Signed MoUs with the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, nine state governments, and four premier academic institutions (IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur, and AIIMS Rishikesh)
Built data and AI platforms that are reviewed at Chief Minister and Union Ministry level to guide real-time road safety decisions

Our North Star: to halve India's road crash fatalities by 2030, in line with India's SDG 3.6 commitment.

About The Role

This is a role for a narrative architect, not a publicist.

The Head of Communications will serve as the strategic custodian of SaveLIFE Foundation's institutional voice, public positioning, and thought leadership. Reporting directly to the Founder & CEO and serving on the Senior Leadership Team, this leader will translate our work - complex, technical, often invisible systems reform - into narratives that move governments, donors, the media, and the public.

Success in this role looks like a country that understands why road crashes are a preventable public health crisis, and an organisation that is recognised nationally and globally as the reference model for systems-level road safety reform.

Role and Responsibilities

The role is organised around five strategic mandates.

1. Institutional Narrative & Positioning

Define and institutionalise SaveLIFE Foundation's overarching narrative, aligned with our 2030 North Star
Develop and maintain messaging frameworks, brand voice guidelines, and an annual narrative roadmap tied to strategic priorities
Position the Founder & CEO and senior leadership in the conversations - national and global - that shape road safety policy, governance reform, and AI for the public good

2. Policy & Thought Leadership Amplification

Translate SaveLIFE's policy work, crash investigation methodology, engineering reforms, enforcement systems, and trauma care design into public-facing thought leadership of institutional weight
Commission and shape policy briefs, white papers, op-eds, SSRN publications, media features, and conference positioning materials - ensuring that every major milestone produces a coherent set of outputs across media, policy, donor, and digital channels
Build SaveLIFE's visibility and authority with multilateral institutions, global philanthropies, and academic platforms such as the World Economic Forum, Skoll Foundation, and WHO
Position SaveLIFE as a leading voice in emerging debates on data-enabled public systems and road safety reform in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

3. Strategic Media & Public Affairs

Build and steward relationships with senior journalists, editors, and editorial boards across Indian and international media
Develop proactive media strategies around legislative milestones, government partnerships, impact data releases, and technology innovation
Ensure all external communication is calibrated to the moment - with the judgement to align timing, tone, and framing with the stakeholder contexts SaveLIFE operates across
Lead crisis communications when required, protecting both the mission and the relationships that advance it

4. Donor & Strategic Partner Communications

Partner with the Partnerships team to support institutional donors and philanthropic partners with impact narratives, stewardship materials, and campaign framing that combine rigour with resonance
Design the narrative architecture for donor convenings, site visits, and board engagements
Produce high-quality annual reports and strategic collateral that reflect SaveLIFE's evolving institutional weight
Ensure every major proposal, pitch, and funder interaction is grounded in a consistent, compelling institutional story

5. Digital Evolution, Brand, and Internal Message Discipline

Oversee SaveLIFE's digital presence and modernise the brand identity to reflect a data-driven, governance-forward institution
Build visual storytelling tools for ZFD dashboards and systems reform frameworks - and commission short films, explainers, and digital campaigns aligned with national priorities
Ensure message consistency across state teams, district teams, policy, research, and data functions - SaveLIFE must sound like one institution whether speaking to a Chief Minister, a journalist, or a global donor
Build and lead a high-performing communications team, and develop internal capacity for institutional messaging discipline across the organisation.

What Success Looks Like (First 24 Months)

By the end of the first 24 months, we expect the successful candidate to have:

Established SaveLIFE Foundation as India's most authoritative institutional voice on road safety systems reform
Built a widely-understood public narrative around Zero Fatality District as a governance model - one that is picked up by senior policymakers, media, and the philanthropic ecosystem
Positioned SaveLIFE as a recognised thought leader in data-driven road safety at the national and global level
Delivered a modernised brand identity, digital presence, and annual report architecture that reflect SaveLIFE's evolving institutional scale
Institutionalised messaging frameworks, voice guidelines, and communication processes across state and district teams
Built a communications function and team that directly accelerates fundraising, policy adoption, and government engagement

Qualifications and Professional Experience

Experience:

10–15+ years of experience in strategic communications, public affairs, or policy communications - with meaningful time spent inside, alongside, or engaging with government, public institutions, or systems-reform initiatives
Exceptional writing and editorial ability - the capacity to produce long-form policy writing as fluently as short-form narrative
A working understanding of public policy, governance, or the infrastructure and public health ecosystems SaveLIFE operates within
Demonstrated relationships with senior journalists, editors, and opinion leaders
Proven experience translating technical, data-heavy content into compelling narratives
Experience engaging with senior leadership and boards at the institutional level
Experience managing teams and building out communications functions

Preferred: background in public health, infrastructure, governance, or the development sector; prior engagement with global philanthropies or multilateral institutions.

What You'll Gain

A unique platform to lead change at scale, with the ability to directly influence infrastructure and policy in India and beyond.
The chance to work with India's only organization that combines system reform with on-ground action for road safety.
Cross-sector exposure across engineering, governance, public health, and civic engagement.
An entrepreneurial environment that values innovation, courage, and execution excellence.
An opportunity to be part of a globally recognized movement saving thousands of lives each year.

SaveLIFE Foundation is for you if you

Crave purpose in your work and want to solve real problems for real people.
Thrive in a high-performance environment where outcomes matter.
Are passionate about improving systems through technology and design.
Want your work to matter—not just for your company, but for your country.

Personal Characteristics:

We are looking for a systems thinker with political sensitivity - someone who:

Reads stakeholder context well - knowing how to calibrate timing, tone, and framing to advance the mission across very different audiences
Sees communications as an instrument of legitimacy, trust, and coalition-building - not as a volume game
Is intellectually serious about substance - willing to understand crash investigation, engineering standards, enforcement models, trauma care systems, and AI platforms well enough to explain them with accuracy and authority
Carries executive presence without ego, and can be an effective peer to Cabinet Secretaries, Chief Ministers, global philanthropists, and investigative reporters alike
Operates with discretion, recognising that much of institutional communications is about protecting and deepening relationships, not only amplifying messages

Core Competencies