Project Director

Role - Project Director

Project - Mental Health Initiative under The Convergence Foundation

Background & Context

India is facing a significant youth mental health challenge. Across the 11–29 age group — in schools, colleges, coaching centres, and early work life — distress is common, often persistent, and largely unmet. Young people are dealing with multiple, compounding pressures: academic and career expectations, economic uncertainty, digital exposure, adverse childhood experiences, and structural inequalities that shape everyday life.

140M youth (11–29) estimated to experience symptoms of anxiety or depression 13,000+ student suicides annually — up more than 50% over the past decade 1 in 7 adolescents aged 10–19 experienced a mental disorder in India

Yet the ecosystem of support remains critically inadequate. The interventions today remain concentrated on curative solutions like counselling (both private and govt), rather than promotion and prevention. There is limited focus on destigmatisation, upstream risk factors, or recovery. Government programmes such as NMHP and Tele-MANAS exist, but face some challenges in execution. India's mental health budget stands at 1.5% of health spend against a global average of 3–4%.

About Aikyam Foundation

Founded in 2024 by Manisha Dhawan, Founding Trustee of The Convergence Foundation (TCF), Aikyam Foundation is a not-for-profit built to address the youth mental health crisis in India. Aikyam seeks to strengthen system design for youth mental health (ages 11-24) in India across government, educational institutions, and civil society. It also plays a role in supply shaping for the sector — by supporting adoption of proven approaches and helping shift focus towards promotion, early support, and stronger pathways to care.

Aikyam is also a founding partner of the India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA). It is actively exploring partnerships with state governments to co-design and support state-led youth mental health systems as replicable, evidence-based models for national adoption.

Aikyam is a sister organisation of The Convergence Foundation

Aikyam is a sister organisation to The Convergence Foundation (TCF). TCF, The Convergence Foundation, is an Indian philanthropic foundation dedicated to catalysing rapid and sustained economic growth to enhance the lives of all Indians. Established by Ashish and Manisha Dhawan in April 2021, TCF builds on their legacy of impactful philanthropy, including the founding of transformative institutions like Ashoka University and the Central Square Foundation.

In each area, TCF works on:

• Building pioneering institutions to address India's most complex socio-economic challenges.
• Shaping the larger ecosystem and sharing knowledge, insights and learning with other philanthropists, governments and key stakeholders

The TCF Network includes 20+ organisations, each committed to addressing specific areas of India's socio-economic development, from school education and governance to women's economic empowerment and export competitiveness.

Role Overview

Aikyam Foundation is seeking an exceptional Project Director to lead its work. The Project Director will be responsible for setting strategic direction, building and leading the initiative's operating model, and positioning Aikyam as a credible, influential platform for mental health systems reform in youth mental health. The role requires a seasoned leader with deep experience in institution-building and systems reform, and the ability to operate effectively across government, academia, philanthropy, and civil society.

Prior experience in mental health and working with governments is a strong plus but not required; conviction in the thematic, comfort with complexity, and the ability to build from first principles are essential.

This role requires equal strength in hands-on execution and system-level influence. The Project Director will be expected to design strategy, build and run operating models, and personally drive early-stage implementation, while also shaping policy conversations, influencing senior stakeholders, and positioning Aikyam as a credible national platform for mental health systems reform.

The Project Director will report directly to Manisha Dhawan, Founder, Aikyam Foundation and the advisory board.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy, Research & Influence

• Define and steward Aikyam's North Star and translate it into a clear, phased strategy and execution roadmap with measurable outcomes
• Identify the highest-leverage intervention points across the mental health value chain — promotion, prevention, curative care, and recovery — and across policy, institutions, and ecosystems
• Ensure strategic coherence across Aikyam's research, pilots, policy work, government engagement, and ecosystem-building activities
• Guide the development of research, pilots, and policy recommendations that inform system-level reform; ensure Aikyam's work is evidence-based and contextually grounded
• Develop pathways for the adoption of effective approaches within public systems and institutions
• Shape public and policy discourse to elevate youth mental health as a national priority; position Aikyam as a credible thought partner to government, academia, and civil society

Institution & Team Building

• Build and lead a high-calibre, mission-aligned team with complementary skills
• Establish strong internal systems, operating processes, and governance mechanisms
• Develop Aikyam's organisational infrastructure — from systems and processes to partnerships and platforms — to support sustainable scale
• Oversee budgets, resource allocation, and organisational sustainability
• Work closely with the founder on priorities and strategic alignment, execution, and long-term direction
• Provide regular strategic updates, learning insights, and progress reporting to key stakeholders and advisors

Ecosystem & Stakeholder Engagements

• Build and manage deep, trusted relationships and partnerships with senior stakeholders across state and central government, universities, philanthropy, and research institutions
• Convene stakeholders to drive alignment and collective action on priority themes
• Represent Aikyam in forums, consultations, and multi-stakeholder platforms
• Develop shared tools, standards, and knowledge products that allow effective interventions to be adopted and sustained across diverse institutional contexts

Candidate Profile

Experience

• 15-20 years of overall professional experience
• Proven senior leadership experience in institution-building, large-scale change efforts from strategy to execution
• Experience operating in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
• Prior experience in mental health, health systems, education, or social sector reform is a plus, not a prerequisite
• Demonstrated ability to build organisations, programmes, or platforms from early stage through scale, including setting up teams, systems, and governance

Skills & Competencies

• Strong strategic thinker with the ability to execute amid ambiguity
• Entrepreneurial mindset; comfortable building new models and institutions
• Outstanding people leader with experience leading senior teams
• Ability to engage, influence, and build credibility with top-tier stakeholders
• High intellectual curiosity and learning orientation

Personal Attributes

• Deep conviction in the importance of youth mental health and long-term systems change; motivated by impact at the population scale
• Values-driven, mission-aligned, and impact-oriented
• Collaborative, reflective, and resilient
• Comfortable balancing thought leadership with hands-on execution

Compensation: Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales

Why This Role

This is a rare opportunity to:

• Lead one of India's most ambitious efforts to reform mental health systems in youth mental health
• Define the strategy — Aikyam's North Star, areas of play, and theory of change are actively being shaped; the Project Director will be central to this
• Work directly with a committed founder and long-term philanthropic platform
• Shape policy, institutions, and ecosystems—not just programmes
• Build durable systems that can improve the lives of millions of young people over timE