Job Openings Sector Head - Nutrition

About the job Sector Head - Nutrition

About CEGIS

Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS – pronounced See-Jis) aims to improve lives by helping Indian state governments deliver better development outcomes. We believe that the most impactful lever for accelerating national development is to improve governance and state capacity to better deliver core public services at scale.

Informed by cutting-edge research and evidence as well as a practical orientation toward implementable ideas, CEGIS works with state governments in India to enable a transformative improvement in their functioning. CEGISs vision and Theory of Change (ToC) are an outcome of extensive research done by Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (CEGIS Co-Founder and Scientific Director) and outlined in his multiple award-winning, national bestselling book Accelerating India's Development, and enabled by strategic philanthropic support provided by Ashish Dhawan (CEGIS Co-Founder).

CEGIS Approach and Model of Functioning:

CEGISs solutions to enhance governance are co-created with state governments in a state-led way, where we focus on deep partnerships with states using an iterative cycle of think-demonstrate-document-transfer. We work closely with the top bureaucratic leadership, front-line workers and public officials in Finance, Planning, Human Resources and a few other priority line departments. Many of our solutions reflect ideas outlined in the book Accelerating India's Development, and these solutions are constantly refined based on real-time feedback and are designed to both be customized to the contexts we are working in, and to create templates that can provide the starting point for replication across contexts.

Our focus areas reflect evidence that key characteristics of high-performing organisations include (a) measuring outcomes through reliable, high quality data that enables goal setting and progress monitoring; (b) strategic use of personnel – competency based hiring and training, skilling, and performance appraisals to determine job assignments, pay, and promotions – to achieve the goals above; (c) strategic budgeting where resource allocation and revenue collection are based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; (d) and creating efficient systems to leverage external actors (including for-profit and nonprofit organisations). CEGIS partners with states to improve capacity by focusing on these pillars of State effectiveness, and aims to also integrate these horizontal governance improvements into integrated sectoral roadmaps to accelerate the achievement of state and national development outcomes.

Internally, CEGIS is organized into solutions teams that lead the design and technical quality control of our research and evidence-backed approaches to improving governance and state capacity; delivery" teams that lead state-facing work to contextualize the solutions, and support governments in implementing them; and enablement teams that enable the organization to function smoothly.

CEGIS@6 to CEGIS@10: Building on momentum to catalyse national development

Since its incorporation in 2019, CEGIS has gained significant momentum in building strong collaborations with state government(s) as a trusted partner who can provide both thought leadership and implementation support on key governance reforms. CEGIS position as a non-profit that does not take any funding from the government (other than in-kind contributions of office space/staff) has been a key enabler in earning this trust.

Beginning with 1 state government engagement in 2019, today CEGIS is working across 9 Indian states (Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh). We also partner with union agencies/ministries such as Capacity Building Commission, Ministry of Women & Child Development (MoWCD), and Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to share insights from our state-level work to inform national-level guidelines and dissemination to other states. Finally, we also take on selected work at the district level to design and test implementation templates.

From a small group of founding members, we have grown to become a team of 150+ members located across the country, and expect to grow to over 200 in the coming year. Led by a former senior civil-servant with deep governance experience; state and solution team leads with decades of domain expertise; and enabling functions led by professionals with considerable corporate experience, the team at CEGIS brings together knowledge and experience that spans various sectors – from development economics, research, governance, management consulting, and social entrepreneurship.

Over the last 6 years, CEGIS has also garnered support for our vision and theory of change from several foundations and philanthropists whose partnership has enabled us to build our organisational capacity as well as continue to experiment and improve our solution design to augment state capacity and governance. With the rapidly growing demand for CEGISs offerings, CEGIS is well-positioned to play a key role in accelerating Indias development.

To explore what the mission of CEGIS is and the impact we hope to have, please take a look at this video of our CEO, Dr Vijay Pingale.




About the Nutrition sector
Nutrition and early childhood development (ECD) are central priorities for CEGIS. We typically work with Departments/Ministries of Women and Child Development and related agencies that anchor the ICDS system and the wider ECD ecosystem. Our work focuses on strengthening delivery systems so that children 0–6 years and women across the life cycle receive timely and appropriate services. Through interventions in data systems, personnel management, procurement, supply chain management and public finance, CEGIS aims to enable accurate and prompt identification and timely treatment of undernourished children and at-risk women, as well as prevention of malnutrition and associated risks.

Across Health, Education, and Nutrition, CEGIS anchors its sectoral strategies around a common early-life outcomes framework. Early Childhood Development (ECD) sits at the core of the Education portfolio, while the first 1,000 days—from conception to age two—form a central pillar of Health and Nutrition. These are not treated as parallel programmes, but as an integrated continuum of human development, where maternal health, nutrition, caregiving practices, early learning, and system delivery intersect.

Position Summary

The Sector Head – Nutrition will be CEGIS senior-most leader for the nutrition and ECD portfolio. The role is responsible for architecting CEGIS strategy on systems strengthening for nutrition and ECD, building relations with and coordinating among a broad coalition of ecosystem players in education, stewarding a multi-state portfolio of engagements and providing deep technical and strategic leadership on nutrition and ECD.

The Sector Head will command credibility with senior government partners, funders and technical experts, and will work closely with CEGIS state leads and horizontal solution teams to ensure that engagements are coherent, outcome-linked and progress along the solution maturity curve.

This is a senior leadership role that combines sectoral expertise, technical rigour in understanding research and evidence, practical wisdom about how best to deploy technical solutions, portfolio management, ecosystem-building and people leadership.

Reporting to the Chief of Solutions, you will oversee a diverse portfolio of projects, ensuring methodological rigor, quality, and alignment with strategic objectives, while fostering cross-learning and innovation. You will also be expected to work closely with CEGIS Founder and Scientific Director (Prof. Karthik Muralidharan) to understand the intellectual vision behind proposed reforms and work closely on refining them, in ways that reflect cutting edge evidence.

Roles & Responsibilities

Sector Strategy and Portfolio Leadership

  • Refine and design CEGIS organisational strategy for improving governance in the nutrition and ECD sector, ensuring that it is comprehensive, coherent and innovative.
  • Translate this strategy into a clear portfolio roadmap across states – including anchor projects, prototypes and learning agendas.
  • Work with state leads to define outcome pathways and intermediate metrics for each major engagement (for example stunting, wasting, underweight, anaemia and gestational outcomes).
  • Review the portfolio periodically to rebalance the investment of time and resources based on learning, feasibility and strategic importance.

Partnerships, Ecosystem Engagement and Funding Narratives

  • Identify, institutionalise and manage partnerships, being the point of contact for communication with various stakeholders in the nutrition and ECD ecosystem and supporting local engagements.
  • Cultivate and sustain relationships and networks with prospective donors and industry experts, sectoral influencers, HNIs, non-profits and ecosystem players through technical engagements and meaningful communication.
  • Position CEGIS nutrition and ECD offerings in a way that resonates with funders, demonstrating alignment with donor visions, sectoral priorities and organisational strategy.
  • Co-create a nutrition-focused funding narrative and pipeline with the fundraising and donor relations teams; anchor and review compelling concept notes and proposals that highlight CEGIS strategic approach and interventions.
  • Participate in external events, workshops and conferences to advocate for CEGIS mission and establish mechanisms of cross-learning both internally and externally.

Technical Stewardship and Quality Assurance

  • Provide technical sectoral leadership to projects across states and solutions, ensuring alignment with overall strategy and high-quality outputs.
  • Provide strategic insights into project structure, approach, methodologies and deliverables, leveraging support from state and project leads.
  • Engage with leadership to ensure that the nutrition and ECD portfolio aligns with CEGIS Theory of Change and broader strategy.
  • Participate, as required, and help teams scope and build solution proposals, ensuring a balance of rigour, feasibility and cost-effectiveness.
  • Work closely with the Measurement, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team to create required frameworks and aggregate learnings into reusable playbooks and knowledge products for public use by governments and other organizations.

Internal Leadership and Cross-Sector Learning

  • Foster cross-learning between projects in different states or anchored by different solution teams working on nutrition and ECD.
  • Collaborate closely with the Education and Health Sector Leads on integrated ECD and womens health agendas (for example anaemia, hypertension and adolescent health).
  • Mentor mid-level colleagues working on nutrition and ECD and contribute to building a strong sector bench within CEGIS.
  • Model CEGIS values and operating norms – transparency, intellectual rigour and a strong bias to implementation and partnership with the state.

Cross-Sector Integration & Early Life Outcomes

  • Work collaboratively to design and operationalize solutions that cut across departmental silos aligning service delivery, data systems, and institutional incentives so that states move from fragmented interventions to a coherent early-life strategy that improves survival, growth, learning readiness, and long-term productivity.

Required Qualifications, Skills, and Abilities

Educational Qualification

  • Masters degree in relevant fields such as Public Health, Nutrition, Public Policy, Economics, Development Studies or a related field. A PhD in a relevant discipline is an advantage but not mandatory. What is essential is the ability to read, understand, and synthesize primary research with adequate judgment to assess the quality and generalizability of evidence.

Professional Experience

  • 15–20 years of progressive experience in research, programme design and implementation or consulting in nutrition and ECD, with at least 5 years in senior, government-facing roles.
  • Experience working with government systems, especially on topics related to nutrition and ECD, is highly desirable.
  • Demonstrated track record of engaging with global donors and multilateral institutions for strategic proposal development and leading grant proposals for large projects.
  • Experience engaging with senior bureaucrats in national and state governments, especially in advocating for and designing large-scale sectoral solutions.
  • Strong knowledge of frameworks, theories and research related to nutrition and ECD; field experience in ECD is preferred.
  • Strong stakeholder management and people engagement skills, including aligning multiple stakeholders and building platforms for collaboration and coordination.
  • Demonstrates empathy and emotional intelligence; comfortable innovating, taking initiative and solutioning within complex contexts.
  • Passion for working with governments and making Indian states work better; intellectual curiosity and willingness to learn.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English; proficiency in at least one Indian language is preferred.

Personal characteristics & Interpersonal abilities

  • Operating style suited to working in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment where teamwork, resourcefulness, and ownership are highly valued.
  • Ability to think creatively, take calculated risks, and translate ideas into action.
  • High ability to collaborate and actively listen, valuing and integrating diverse perspectives.
  • Versatility and comfort in taking on new problems and quickly diving into unfamiliar sectors or contexts.

Location and Compensation

Location: The role can be based out of Delhi/ Mumbai/ Chennai/ Hyderabad/ Bangalore. Travel to other states will be required.

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social sector pay scales and will depend on the candidate's experience levels.

Interested candidates are requested to submit their applications by clicking the apply button below

Note: CEGIS has zero tolerance for sexual harassment. We therefore expect each applicant to self-declare related to the same. CEGIS could, if required, initiate a prevention of sexual harassment-based background verification. If an applicant is reported for misconduct, appropriate action that may include employment termination would be taken. Please complete the details for self-declaration on the application form.

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