Job Description:
Job Title: Project Director, Aikyam Foundation
Location: Delhi
Background & Context
India is facing a significant youth mental health challenge. Across the 11–29 age group — in schools, colleges, coaching centres, and early work life — distress is common, often persistent, and largely unmet. Young people are dealing with multiple, compounding pressures: academic and career expectations, economic uncertainty, digital exposure, adverse childhood experiences, and structural inequalities that shape everyday life.
~140M youth (11–29) estimated to experience symptoms of anxiety or depression 13,000+ student suicides annually — up more than 50% over the past decade 1 in 7 adolescents aged 10–19 experienced a mental disorder in India
Yet the ecosystem of support remains critically inadequate. The interventions today remain concentrated on curative solutions like counselling (both private and govt), rather than promotion and prevention. There is limited focus on destigmatisation, upstream risk factors, or recovery. Government programmes such as NMHP and Tele-MANAS exist, but face some challenges in execution. India's mental health budget stands at ~1.5% of health spend against a global average of 3–4%.
About Aikyam Foundation
Founded in 2024 by Manisha Dhawan, Founding Trustee of The Convergence Foundation (TCF), Aikyam Foundation is a not-for-profit built to address the youth mental health crisis in India. Aikyam seeks to strengthen system design for youth mental health (ages 11-24) in India across government, educational institutions, and civil society. It also plays a role in supply shaping for the sector — by supporting adoption of proven approaches and helping shift focus towards promotion, early support, and stronger pathways to care.
Aikyam is also a founding partner of the India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA). It is actively exploring partnership with state governments to co-design and support state-led youth mental health systems as replicable, evidence-based models for national adoption.
Aikyam is a sister organisation to The Convergence Foundation
Aikyam is a sister organisation to The Convergence Foundation (TCF). TCF, The Convergence Foundation is an Indian philanthropic foundation dedicated to catalysing rapid and sustained economic growth to enhance the lives of all Indians. Established by Ashish and Manisha Dhawan in April 2021, TCF builds on their legacy of impactful philanthropy, including the founding of transformative institutions like Ashoka University and the Central Square Foundation.
In each area, TCF works on:
Building pioneering institutions to address India's most complex socio-economic challenges.
Shaping the larger ecosystem and sharing knowledge, insights and learning with other philanthropists, governments and key stakeholders
The TCF Network includes 20+ organisations, each committed to addressing specific areas of India's socio-economic development, from school education and governance to women's economic empowerment and export competitiveness.
Role Overview
Aikyam Foundation is seeking an exceptional Project Director to lead its work. The Project Director will be responsible for setting strategic direction, building and leading the initiative’s operating model, and positioning Aikyam as a credible, influential platform for mental health systems reform in youth mental health. The role requires a seasoned leader with deep experience in institution-building and systems reform, and the ability to operate effectively across government, academia, philanthropy, and civil society.
Prior experience in mental health and working with governments is a strong plus but not required; conviction in the thematic, comfort with complexity, and the ability to build from first principles are essential.
This role requires equal strength in hands-on execution and system-level influence. The Project Director will be expected to design strategy, build and run operating models, and personally drive early-stage implementation, while also shaping policy conversations, influencing senior stakeholders, and positioning Aikyam as a credible national platform for mental health systems reform.
The Project Director will report directly to Manisha Dhawan, Founder, Aikyam Foundation and the advisory board.
Key Responsibilities
Strategy, Research & Influence
Define and steward Aikyam's North Star and translate it into a clear, phased strategy and execution roadmap with measurable outcomes
Identify the highest-leverage intervention points across the mental health value chain — promotion, prevention, curative care, and recovery — and across policy, institutions, and ecosystems
Ensure strategic coherence across Aikyam's research, pilots, policy work, government engagement, and ecosystem-building activities
Guide the development of research, pilots, and policy recommendations that inform system-level reform; ensure Aikyam's work is evidence-based and contextually grounded
Develop pathways for adoption of effective approaches within public systems, institutions
Shape public and policy discourse to elevate youth mental health as a national priority; position Aikyam as a credible thought partner to government, academia, and civil society
Institution & Team Building
Build and lead a high-calibre, mission-aligned team with complementary skills
Establish strong internal systems, operating processes, and governance mechanisms
Develop Aikyam's organisational infrastructure — from systems and processes to partnerships and platforms — to support sustainable scale
Oversee budgets, resource allocation, and organisational sustainability
Work closely with the founder on priorities and strategic alignment, execution, and long-term direction
Provide regular strategic updates, learning insights, and progress reporting to key stakeholders and advisors
Ecosystem & Stakeholder Engagements
Build and manage deep, trusted relationships and partnerships with senior stakeholders across state and central government, universities, philanthropy, and research institutions
Convene stakeholders to drive alignment and collective action on priority themes
Represent Aikyam in forums, consultations, and multi-stakeholder platforms
Develop shared tools, standards, and knowledge products that allow effective interventions to be adopted and sustained across diverse institutional contexts
Candidate Profile
Experience
15-20 years of overall professional experience
Proven senior leadership experience in institution-building, large-scale change efforts from strategy to execution
Experience operating in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
Prior experience in mental health, health systems, education, or social sector reform is a plus, not a prerequisite
Demonstrated ability to build organisations, programmes, or platforms from early stage through scale, including setting up teams, systems, and governance
Skills & Competencies
Strong strategic thinker with the ability to execute amid ambiguity
Entrepreneurial mindset; comfortable building new models and institutions
Outstanding people leader with experience leading senior teams
Ability to engage, influence, and build credibility with top-tier stakeholders
High intellectual curiosity and learning orientation
Personal Attributes
Deep conviction in the importance of youth mental health and long-term systems change; motivated by impact at population scale
Values-driven, mission-aligned, and impact-oriented
Collaborative, reflective, and resilient
Comfortable balancing thought leadership with hands-on execution
Compensation: Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy pay scales
Why This Role
This is a rare opportunity to:
Lead one of India’s most ambitious efforts to reform mental health systems in youth mental health
Define the strategy — Aikyam's North Star, areas of play, and theory of change are actively being shaped; the Project Director will be central to this
Work directly with a committed founder and long-term philanthropic platform
Shape policy, institutions, and ecosystems—not just programmes
Build durable systems that can improve the lives of millions of young people over timE