Associate Manager - Strategy & Execution - Sanitation & Social Impact

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This is a role for a social impact x tech company, for their sanitation programme. Details of the company will be shared with shortlisted candidates.

The Role:

As Associate Manager, the person will own a defined part of the sanitation programme end to end, from framing the problem through to landing a solution on the ground. This is a high-ownership role with direct exposure to senior stakeholders across government, industry and civil society.

What You'll Do:

Strategy and problem solving:

• Own a scoped problem area within the programme - mechanisation, financing, policy or workforce, and drive it from diagnosis through to a recommended course of action.
• Apply systems thinking to identify the root causes behind persistent failures, rather than the symptoms, and design solutions that hold up across states with very different capacity.
• Run structured research and analysis - field visits, expert interviews, data analysis, market and policy scans, and turn findings into insights that shape programme direction.

Stakeholder engagement and coalition building:

• Build and manage relationships with machine manufacturers, state and city governments, NGOs, sanitation worker collectives and funders.
• Design and facilitate workshops and working sessions where solutions are co-created with partners rather than presented to them.
• Represent the organisation in external forums and working groups and hold day-to-day counterpart relationships on behalf of the programme.

Execution and delivery:

• Translate strategy into implementation plans with clear milestones, owners and success measures, then track delivery against them.
• Produce concept notes, strategy decks, policy briefs and synthesis documents that stand up in front of government and funder audiences.
• Design and run pilots of promising solutions in the field, troubleshoot as they run and capture what works so it can be replicated elsewhere.

What We're Looking For:

• 3+ years in roles that demand strategic, original thinking and clear communication.
• Strong structured problem solving, including the ability to take a large, messy problem, break it into parts and work out which part actually matters.
• Comfort with working across ambiguity and evolving priorities with agility.
• Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building capability with different types of stakeholders.
• Proactivity, accountability, and a strong drive to go the extra mile and deliver high-quality outputs and outcomes.
• Writing and presentation skills strong enough for government and funder audiences.
• Willingness to spend real time in the field.
• Genuine interest in governance, labour systems and social impact.