Head of Operations / Head of Administration and Finance

About Suvita

Suvita is a startup nonprofit working to increase uptake of routine childhood immunisations in India. We are impact-focused and currently deliver two evidence-based programmes to boost attendance at vaccination appointments:

Identifying natural community influencers and supporting them to act as immunisation ambassadors.
Sending SMS reminders directly to new parents and caregivers, to help them remember when their child is due for a vaccination.

So far we have reached roughly half a million users and estimate that we have saved hundreds of lives. We have been incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship and by The/Nudge Foundation, and our funders include Mulago Foundation, Schmidt Futures and Founders Pledge.

About the role

Do you have a keen eye for detail? Do you love integrating all the small details into a smooth-running whole system? Do you thrive on making systems more efficient?

We’re seeking an operations leader who will be responsible for delivering and strengthening Suvita’s operations across administration, finance and programmes. You will cover domains such as HR (onboarding & offboarding, contracts, policies), compliance (for multiple entities across different countries), finance, bookkeeping, funder reporting, infrastructure and equipment, and programme operational improvement.

The role will be a mixture of:

establishing new systems that don’t exist yet (for example building our Section 8 entity towards achieving FCRA registration in India) as well as
maintaining core functions and making them more efficient (for example HR operations like team contract renewals, and programme operations like survey management).

You will encounter many novel tasks or problems for which we don’t yet have an established protocol - so you must be comfortable charting a course under uncertainty and bringing in your previous experience where relevant. You will also encounter systems which have been in place for a while - so you should be skilled at identifying opportunities for further improvement, and at prioritising which areas you should focus on to have the greatest impact.

This role requires a person who is highly organised, conscientious and proactive, who has excellent problem-solving skills, high attention to detail and the ability to quickly and effectively seek, absorb and process information for decision-making.

What sort of things will you be working on?

Managing our finances across entities in India, UK and USA, and making sure funds are moved efficiently between them to ensure adequate cashflow while minimising transaction costs.
We have a Section 8 company in India for which we want to complete 12AA, 80G and FCRA registrations. You will lead on making this happen.
We recently registered as a CIO in the UK and you will prepare this entity to take on its first employee.
Ensuring that our entities across all countries meet their compliance and reporting obligations.
Carrying out HR operations such as contract renewals, onboarding, offboarding, reimbursements, leave tracking. And iterating these systems to make them more efficient.
Working with our Programme Managers to increase programme efficiency. This could involve running internal experiments in coordination with other colleagues such as Head of Tech and/or Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Specialist.
Generally identifying opportunities to make Suvita’s work as an organisation more efficient.

Where might the role go?

The scope of the role will grow alongside Suvita’s scale, e.g. over time you will likely be working with a growing team; managing more entities; holding more external partnerships and administering increasing quantities of funds. This means that there’s a good chance the role will also expand in future to include managing other operations team members.

Why it's awesome

Your work will save lives.
You’ll be part of a mission-driven, impact-focused organisation with strong values, delivering programmes grounded in evidence.
It’s a high-leverage role in a young organisation. We are aiming for huge growth of our programmes and impact in the coming years, so there are plenty of opportunities for outsized personal impact.
You’ll have high flexibility about when/where/how you work.

Who we're looking for

We don’t have any hard requirements for the role in terms of education or experience. The ideal candidate will have many of the following characteristics:

Excellent planning skills (Do you often anticipate potential hurdles or bottlenecks that others might miss when planning a task?)
Systems mindset (Are you good at stepping back from individual tasks to think about how the whole system could work better to meet its goals? Do you take pleasure in building systems that do their job really smoothly? Would you be likely to spot an opportunity to adjust a routine process in order to save everyone in the team 1h a week?)
Highly organised and conscientious (When you set goals, do you also create a plan of how you’ll achieve them?)
Excellent attention to detail (Are you particularly good at picking up on errors or crucial considerations that others miss?)
Flexible, enjoy a high task-volume (Do you like having a variety of tasks on your plate which require you to frequently switch context?)
Quick learner: able to quickly and effectively seek, absorb and process information for decision-making
Excellent problem-solving skills
High-agency
Great at prioritising the most important tasks
A team player who gets a thrill out of helping the whole team to increase its impact and who shares Suvita's values.

Other details

Hours: full time - the role will start as a fixed 1-year contract, with plans to become a long-term position subject to performance and org plans and budgets.
Salary: competitive with other nonprofit salaries, and in line with the experience and responsibilities of the selected candidate.
Benefits include:
- 30 days’ paid holiday leave per year plus 12 days’ sick leave at full pay.
- Reimbursement towards an annual health insurance policy for all India-based team members.
Location: preferably India-based, but this is not a hard requirement. We have team members based in Pune, Patna and London but are open to fully remote or hybrid work models.

Next steps

If this all sounds exciting, please fill out this form to confirm your interest in the role. You will then be automatically emailed a link to the application form, which is due by 28th August. We look forward to hearing from you :)