Position: Associate Principal, Non Profit Advisory

The Opportunity:

The Associate Principal in Nonprofit Advisory plays a crucial role in designing solutions addressing customer needs and driving measurable social impact. You'll collaborate closely with the team, engage stakeholders, and contribute to research-based insights, all aimed at solving problems and achieving project goals.

Roles & Responsibilities:

1. Advisory solution design and delivery leadership:

• Lead the design and delivery of advisory engagements across Non-Profit Advisory's core offerings: program design and scale up, MEL, strategy development etc.
• Support the team in translating ambiguous client problems into clear hypotheses, workplans, analytical frameworks, stakeholder engagement plans and decision-ready outputs.
• Bring strong problem-solving, synthesis and consulting judgement to engagements involving multiple stakeholders, complex evidence, limited data and high ambiguity.
• Ensure delivery excellence across project plans, client workshops, plans and outputs.

2. Account leadership and client stewardship:

• Own and grow a portfolio of strategic non-profit accounts, seeking to build institutional strength and impact at scale.
• Understand client aspirations, organisational realities, funding context, programme models and leadership priorities to shape relevant advisory support.
• Identify opportunities for deeper engagement in line with the aspirations of the non-profits.
• Build trusted relationships with founders, CEOs, boards, senior management teams, programme leaders and funder stakeholders.
• Serve as the senior day-to-day relationship anchor for select accounts, ensuring client success, strong communication, quality delivery and long-term relationship depth.

3. Contribute to business development and ecosystem engagement

• Lead end-to-end relationships with select prospective clients, from identifying and understanding their needs to co-creating, shaping, and converting opportunities into client engagements.
• Develop strong problem-led proposals with clear value propositions, methodologies, staffing plans, timelines, budgets and impact outcomes.
• Maintain strong understanding of the Indian non-profit ecosystem including philanthropy trends, non-profit needs, emerging opportunities and challenges etc.
• Use ecosystem conversations and internal learning to codify reusable knowledge that strengthens the practice's offerings and market position.
• Contribute to the development of new offerings and sharper solution areas for Non-Profit Advisory.

4. Team leadership and capability building

• Lead multi-disciplinary teams across consulting engagements, ensuring clarity of roles, strong problem-solving discipline, high-quality outputs and positive team experience.
• Coach and mentor team members on problem structuring, client management, synthesis, communication, project management and sector understanding.
• Create a culture of rigour, empathy, ownership, collaboration, high learning orientation and resilience in ambiguity, aligned withstated non-negotiables.

Required Experience:

1. 14-16 years of relevant experience for Associate Principal level, aligned with stated role banding.

2. Experience working with senior leaders in the impact ecosystem especially non-profits and funders.

3. Demonstrated track record experience leading complex consulting/advisory engagements or building partnerships in the impact sector

4. Experience managing and mentoring teams

Skills and Competencies:

1. Consulting and problem-solving

• Strong ability to structure ambiguous problems, develop hypotheses, design analytical approaches, synthesise evidence and create clear recommendations.
• Ability to combine strategic thinking with implementation realism.
• Strong comfort with qualitative and quantitative evidence, primary and secondary research, stakeholder consultation and field insights.

2. Client and stakeholder management

• Ability to engage senior leaders with confidence, humility and credibility.
• Strong facilitation skills, including the ability to run workshops, steer difficult conversations and align diverse stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including crisp executive-level presentations.

3. Commercial and practice-building orientation

• Ability to identify client needs, shape opportunities, write strong proposals and contribute to revenue growth.
• Comfort with business targets, pipeline development, account planning and proposal economics.
• Ability to build reusable knowledge, frameworks and tools that strengthen the practice.

4. Sector depth

• Strong understanding of the non-profit ecosystem and the realities of non profit institutions.
• Understanding of the larger impact ecosystem including funding agencies and government.

5. People leadership

• Ability to mentor teams, build capability, manage performance, create clarity and support high-quality delivery under pressure.
• High empathy, strong feedback orientation and ability to work across diverse backgrounds and working styles.