The State Lead will be PCI India’s senior representative in Maharashtra and accountable for the programme as a whole. You will lead a team of about 40 across the state, district and block levels, hold the day-to-day relationship with MSRLM leadership, and ensure an embedded model delivers results at a scale few livelihoods' programmes attempt.

This role is for someone who has led large government-partnered livelihoods programmes, can sit across the table from Mission Directors and district officials with credibility, and is just as comfortable reviewing a dashboard as standing in a Producer Group meeting.

Key Responsibilities:

Programme Leadership & Delivery

•    Own end-to-end delivery of Swayamshree 2.0 in Maharashtra, against agreed outcomes, milestones and budget.

•    Prepare and maintain the annual work plan, activity calendar and milestone tracker, with clear accountability at state, district and block levels.

•    Oversee prioritization of value chains and selection of model enterprises, PGs and FPOs for incubation.

•    Manage budget utilization with the finance team, proactively flagging variances and ensuring full compliance with grant conditions.

Government & Stakeholder Partnerships

•    Be the face of PCI India with MSRLM – UMED and state government stakeholders, building institutional co-ownership of the programme.

•    Drive state-level convergence with Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Horticulture, PMFME, NABARD, banks and market institutions etc.

•    Represent PCI India in state review meetings, coordination forums and planning sessions; support MSRLM in programme reviews and decisions.

•    Build relationships with anchor buyers, institutional buyers and ecosystem partners in coordination with the technical experts.

Team Leadership

•    Directly supervise the Farm Value Chain Expert, Branding and Marketing Expert, Enterprise Development Expert, MIS Officer and 21 District Coordinators; oversee 15 Block Coordinators through the District Coordinators.

•    Conduct structured performance reviews, field supervision visits and regular team reflection sessions.

•    Identify skill gaps and create learning opportunities to strengthen the team's technical and adaptive capacity.

Monitoring & Reporting

•    Steer the Co-Deliver to Co-Own transition: institutionalise SOPs, tools and trained resource pools, and integrate interventions into MSRLM systems, budgets and review mechanisms.

•    Ensure the programme MIS and dashboards are accurate and actively used by MSRLM and the PCI team for decision-making.

•    Prepare and submit high-quality progress reports, milestone evidence and donor updates.

•    Coordinate program evaluation, documentation and knowledge products.

Maharashtra has one of India’s largest Self-Help Group networks, with over 65 lakh SHG women in the programme’s target areas. Mobilization is largely in place; the challenge now is to raise women’s incomes by improving access to productive assets and markets and strengthening their bargaining power.

Swayamshree 2.0 is Reliance Foundation and Gates Foundation’s response to this challenge in the country. The initiative is being implemented by PCI India in Maharashtra in partnership with the Maharashtra State Rural Livelihoods Mission (MSRLM–UMED). Over three years, the programme aims to help 12 lakh SHG women move toward and beyond the ₹1 lakh annual income benchmark.

The programme works within MSRLM’s existing systems, alongside its community cadres, strengthening priority value chains—including spices, pulses, fruits and community food enterprises—incubating model enterprises, Producer Groups and FPOs, building the UMED brand and market channels, and progressively handing ownership to MSRLM and community institutions.

•    Strategic leadership with the ability to translate programme design into annual plansmilestones and team-level accountability.

•    Excellent government liaison and negotiation skillswith comfort engaging Mission Directorsline departmentsdistrict collectors and private-sector partners.

•    Strong people leadership: ability to buildmotivateand supervise a multi-disciplinary team.

•    Analytical mindset: able to draw inference from MIS dashboardsunit economics and KPI dataand drive evidence-based decisions.

•    Excellent written and oral communication and presentation skills in English; proficiency in Marathi strongly preferred.

•    High tolerance for ambiguityfield complexity and multi-stakeholder coordination.