Samhita Social Ventures - Product Head

Company Background :

- Samhita Social Ventures is a consulting firm that works in the social sector, facilitating and advising clients in shaping up and executing their CSR strategies. We bring together companies, donor organizations and high net-worth individuals to collaborate with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and social enterprises. Samhita is supported by the Nadathur Group, an initiative of Mr. N.S. Raghavan, one of the co-founder of Infosys.

- Our CSR consulting practice has worked with several Fortune 100 companies to shape their CSR strategy, facilitate program implementation, run cause-related marketing campaigns and assess impact created. We also work with donor agencies, foundations and philanthropists on high-impact social programs entailing capacity building, research, events and fundraising campaigns.

The Opportunity :

- India is going through an inflection point in terms of Philanthropy and Corporate Social responsibility. The recently introduced Company's Act 2013 mandates all profitable companies to have a clear CSR policy and a plan to implement the same, hence it is estimated that 6,000 companies will need to invest ~ INR 20,000 crores in various CSR activities.

- We see a very clear role for a firm like ours to partner the new entrants in this field and help them with not just ideas but also a very clear map of execution. In addition we are planning to launch a product (Good CSR) that integrates all the monitoring, evaluation and associated paperwork pertaining to each project, in a real-time environment.

Key Responsibilities :

Product Design :

- Lead the design element for various features and create the fundamental framework

- Collaborate with sector experts, donors, implementing agencies etc to get all inputs

- Define the role/intervention of various stake-holders and map the output accordingly

Enterprise Architecture :

- Layout the architecture to facilitate the requirements/output at each level

- Evaluate and identify appropriate technology platforms for delivery

- Provide insights to develop new platforms that can enable new initiatives

- Manage all program and implementation related documents

ICT infrastructure :

- Plan procurement, manage the ICT and AMC of Samhita across all locations/assets

- Participate in establishing governance processes to ensure optimla utilisation of resources and assets across the firm

Understanding of the Social Sector - Landscape (for Profit / Not for Profit ) :

- Understand the needs of partner organisations and recommend relevant solutions

- Achieve business goals within a context of community collaboration by developing policies for sharing software code, technological innovation, business processes, and other IP

Vendor management :

- Source and select vendors for implementations of projects

- Liaise with contracted vendors for timely & accurate delivery of modules/programs/projects

- Manage the commercials end to end (RFP's, negotiations, pricing, etc)

- Capable of creating/managing IT infra and product related contracts

Professional Background and Experience :

- History of having conceptualized, designed and developed large scale tech products

- Sound understanding of available platforms, stacks and languages to facilitate delivery

- Familiar with more than one software development methodology

- Exposure to full-scale SDLC for several projects

- Knowledge of Internet protocols, DBMS and revision control systems

- Savvy to latest trends and developments in the digital space - marketing, SEO/SMM, etc

- Familiarity with consumer privacy and payments industry compliance requirements

- Exposure to business theory, business process development, governance processes, management, budgeting, and administrative operations

- Experience in Back Office systems and knowledge in legal workflow

Education :

- Engineering graduate (top technology school) preferably with a Masters Degree (MS/M.Tech) in a related field or in business (MBA)