Programme Lead – Clean Energy

Required Experience: 10+ years

Location: Noida, Uttar Pradesh

Reporting to: Director, Clean Energy

About iFOREST iFOREST is an independent, not-for-profit research and innovation organization established in 2019. Our mission is to identify, promote, and scale up solutions for critical environment-development challenges in India and other developing regions across Asia and Africa.

We focus on regional priorities to accelerate environmental actions at the sub-national level while influencing national policies and plans to support these efforts. By leveraging our resources and expertise, we aim to address regional needs, enhance national action, and contribute to global solutions.

Our work involves independent, evidence-based research, developing innovative solutions, convening stakeholders to build consensus, and partnering with think tanks, civil society organizations, government agencies, philanthropies, and industry leaders.

The Clean Energy Programme The iFOREST Clean Energy Programme focuses on accelerating equitable renewable energy growth in India by supporting clean energy deployment in underserved states, especially in eastern and northeastern regions.

The programme supports state governments through policy and regulatory reform, implementation strategies, techno-economic assessments, investment facilitation, and institutional capacity building, with a focus on states such as Odisha, Assam, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh.

The work prioritises land-neutral technologies including floating solar, agri-PV, rooftop solar, storage, and green hydrogen, while also promoting renewable energy adoption in industrial and MSME sectors through demand aggregation and decarbonisation initiatives.

At the national level, the programme contributes to policy frameworks that can enable regionally balanced renewable energy growth and support India’s 500 GW non-fossil energy target by 2030 and net-zero goal by 2070.

The Role The Programme Lead – Clean Energy will anchor the delivery and management of iFOREST’s ongoing Clean Energy Programme, working closely with the Programme Director across research, engagement, technical support, and implementation initiatives.

The role will be responsible for ensuring high-quality and timely execution of programme activities and deliverables, supporting achievement of committed outputs and outcomes, coordinating multidisciplinary teams, and managing stakeholder engagements across projects.

The position will also support programme development, institutional outreach, and partnerships with government, industry, and development stakeholders.

Specific tasks to be undertaken by the Programme Lead are:

Anchor delivery of the ongoing Programme, including committed outputs

• Drive execution and management of ongoing and planned projects, ensuring timely delivery of committed activities, outputs, milestones, and reporting requirements.
• Lead day-to-day coordination of research, engagement, technical support, and implementation assignments across programme workstreams.
• Design and manage execution plans, research methodologies, analytical frameworks, workplans, and implementation strategies for programme assignments.
• Assign, coordinate, and monitor research and implementation tasks across teams, ensuring quality, consistency, and timely delivery.
• Manage and undertake primary and secondary research, quantitative and qualitative assessments, policy analysis, technical support and implementation activities.
• Lead preparation and finalisation of research reports, policy papers, presentations, technical outputs, and project deliverables, ensuring analytical rigour and quality control across outputs.
• Lead stakeholder engagements, consultations, workshops, convenings, and implementation activities with governments, industries, and other partners.

Undertake Programme outreach and stakeholder engagement

• Build and maintain strong working relationships with government agencies, industry stakeholders, research institutions, CSOs, media, and development partners.
• Anchor programme outreach and communication activities, including dissemination of research findings, policy recommendations, and implementation learnings.
• Lead preparation of presentations, briefing notes, articles, and other communication materials for policy, public, and donor audiences.
• Represent iFOREST in external meetings, consultations, conferences, and sectoral discussions, as required.

Support Programme development, aligned with the institution’s strategic plan

• Support identification and development of new research, policy, and implementation opportunities aligned wit