Programme Coordinator - India

Main purpose of the role

The role will provide comprehensive, proactive executive and administrative support to 2-3 India Directors and their teams while also contributing to programme coordination and delivery.

The position combines high-level Executive Assistant (EA) responsibilities with programme support activity, enabling the Directors and wider team to operate efficiently. This plays a crucial role in the Strategic Enablement of Programme Teams, by freeing up programme lead’s time to focus on content and strategy by taking charge of operational and coordination responsibilities, becoming a trusted partner in execution. The role requires strong organisational skills, discretion, and a proactive mindset, to contribute to CIFF’s missions

Role’S Responsibilities

Programme Coordination & Support

• Operational Backbone for Programme Delivery – Take ownership of key systems (e.g., Flux) and processes that underpin program execution, ensuring smooth functioning, timely updates, and minimal exceptions. Assist in tracking programme milestones, deliverables, and reporting timelines using tools, budget trackers, and portfolio dashboards.
• Support on Grants & Partner Management - Support grant management processes including documentation, data entry, coordination with programme teams, milestone tracking, partner follow-ups, and ensuring timely disbursements, acting as a central point of accountability.
• Internal & External Coordination Leadership - Moves beyond scheduling to actively drive coordination: setting agendas, ensuring follow-through on action items, and maintaining momentum across internal teams and external partners. Manage basic communications and acknowledgements with Grantees and Partners and act as the first point of contact for external requests to partner with CIFF, to ensure these are dealt with in a professional and timely way. Support the India Directors in coordination, documentation and professional presentation of outputs from discussions where needed.
• Ecosystem Engagement Support - Play a proactive role in managing relationships and rhythms with ecosystem partners, facilitating regular touchpoints, curating discussions, and ensuring alignment.
• Documentation - Contribute to programme-related research, synthesis of notes, and preparation of briefing materials and support senior colleagues in the development of board reports, investment summaries, and programme documentation to a high standard.

Executive & Administrative Support

• Act as the central point of contact for India Directors in their relationships with internal teams, grantees, partners, and peer organisations.
• Manage complex calendars, ensuring strategic prioritisation of meetings and engagements.
• Coordinate domestic and international travel working with the travel spoc for travel documentation including visas, flights, accommodation, and ground transport for the respective Directors and support team travel when required.
• Plan and execute internal and external meetings, workshops, and team offsites.
• Undertake projects that support the Foundation’s agenda.
• Support Directors with meeting preparation, including agenda setting, document collation, and follow-ups.
• Work as a team with other EAs including assisting with high workloads and when there are absences.
• Support HR in onboarding new team members including coordinating interviews and on-boarding plans and induction.

Membership of the team

• This role does not hold line management responsibility, but we expect all employees to demonstrate good leadership behaviours; this includes adopting a coaching approach with colleagues to help build skills, confidence and capability in particular areas, processes or procedures.
• We operate a matrix structure so reporting lines can vary between specific aspects of the role.

Requirements

Skills & Experience

• Understanding of and interest in CIFF’s priority impact areas
• Previous analysis work experience in the private sector, public sector or an international development context
• Demonstrates professional, sound judgement; can think critically, objectively and strategically
• Strong administrative experience, working for senior executives in a busy and complex environment; good experience as a scheduler or manager of executive time
• Strong interpersonal skills – engages with others to get the best out of them and works well as part of a team
• Exceptional organisational skills; able to be flexible as priorities and needs change, and works well under pressure
• Excellent attention to detail
• English is CIFF’s business language – we expect all of our people to display outstanding verbal and written communication skills across all aspects of their role
• Capacity to work in a range of cultural and socio-economic contexts, adapting style and approach appropriately and in a culturally sensitive manner to maximise effectiveness
• IT proficiency – must possess strong Microsoft skills, particularly in Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word, and have the ability to learn new packages, when required
• Ability to work well independently; a motivated self-starter with good problem-solving skills
• Numerate, with a good understanding of basic budget processes

Key Working Relationships

• The Executive Team, their EAs and local office management within CIFF
• Established points of contact across all CIFF programme teams and functional teams (e.g. finance, HR, legal)
• India Directors and team

Management Dimensions

• No direct budget or people management accountability but contributes to the efficient operation of their team.

Benefits

CIFF operates a hybrid work policy across all locations, which means employees work in the office and some of the time from home. We are happy to provide more information on this as part of the recruitment process.

Alongside a competitive salary, we offer a generous benefits package here at CIFF that includes, but is not limited to the following.

• Annual leave - 25 days per annum. Increasing by 1 day after each year of service to a maximum of 30 days.
• Bonus - CIFF currently operates a discretionary bonus scheme.
• Training allowance
• Wellbeing allowance
• Life insurance
• Medical insurance

Please submit your application on or before Thursday 23rd October. CIFF reserves the right to close the job advert early if we receive a high number of suitable applications.