Competency:
Strategic leadership, institution-building, execution, people leadership, government engagement.
Job Mode:
Onsite
Job Description:
Layer
L0 – Institutional Core
Department
Founders & Institutional Leadership
Reports To
Founder & CEO / Board of Directors
Location
New Delhi (HQ) · Multi-state travel
ROLE PURPOSE
RightWalk is at an inflection point — moving towards a systems-driven institution. The Managing Director will own the daily organisational leadership of RightWalk: execution culture, leadership bench, cross-functional coherence, and institutional discipline. This is a role for a leader who has run complex, multi-site organisations and can hold a high bar for performance while building the next layer of leadership. The MD will eventually hold full organisational authority over all operational functions, freeing the Founders to focus on policy, government, and institutional positioning.
The role is designed for someone who can lead across programs, people, systems and strategy. It should attract a serious institution-builder, not someone merely looking for a senior title.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Day-to-day organizational leadership
- Lead organization-wide execution discipline across state programs and enabling functions.
- Translate Founders strategic direction into operating plans, OKRs, and execution culture.
- Drive institutional discipline: OKR cadence, performance review culture, decision protocols, and escalation hygiene.
- Build and lead the senior leadership team across functions — State Programs, Policy & Systems, Data, Finance, People, and Tech.
- Hold cross-functional accountability: identify where the organisation is underperforming, intervene with clarity, and build structural fixes — not workarounds.
- Chair internal performance and execution reviews where delegated by the CEO.
- Multi-state program governance
- Oversee state-level performance through Director – State Programs and State Heads.
- Ensure state PMUs are aligned with RightWalk standards, transition logic and government partnership principles.
- Identify bottlenecks across states and support resolution.
- Ensure replication across states happens with fidelity, not copy-paste chaos.
- Leadership bench and succession depth
- Build second-line leadership across Policy, Programs, Data/M&E, People, Communications and Tech.
- Coach senior managers to move from activity ownership to outcome ownership.
- Support hiring, onboarding and performance management of senior roles.
- Institutional systems and culture
- Strengthen operating rhythm, decision systems, escalation protocols and cross-functional collaboration.
- Ensure compliance, people systems and documentation are taken seriously as institutional infrastructure.
- Reinforce a culture of discipline, courage, ethical implementation and learning.
- Strategic execution support to CEO
- Free the CEO from day-to-day management so she can focus on doctrine, high-level government relationships, donor relationships, narrative and long-term strategy.
- Support CEO with strategic trade-off analysis and execution risk management.
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE — YEAR 1
- RightWalk's senior leadership team is stable, performing, and aligned — with clear accountability and minimal escalation to the Founders for operational matters.
- Multi-state execution is consistent, not dependent on heroics by individuals.
- A performance management culture exists — underperformance is addressed, excellence is recognised.
- The MD has earned the trust of government partners, donors, and internal teams.
- Cross-state replication, risk and transition readiness actively governed.
- Clear operating rhythm across leadership, state programs and functions.
WHAT THIS ROLE DOES NOT DO
- Does not independently change RightWalk's doctrine, policy stance or mission direction.
- Does not bypass functional heads or state leadership.
- Does not become another founder-dependent coordinator.
CANDIDATE PROFILE
- Experience: 15–22 years of progressive leadership experience. Prior experience as CEO, COO, Executive Director, or equivalent in a complex multi-site organisation.
- Sector: Prior exposure to government-adjacent work — policy implementation, public systems, consulting, development sector, or social enterprise.
- Leadership: Demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing teams at scale.
- Edge: Strong performance management instinct — comfortable holding a high bar and making hard calls.
- Gravitas: Credible with government, donors, and civil society — can represent RightWalk with institutional authority.
- Operations: Experience managing multi-state or geographically distributed operations preferred.
- Success traits: Gravitas without ego, execution discipline, public systems maturity, ability to handle conflict, ability to build leaders
