Job Description:
Job Title: Chief Technology Officer
Reports To: Chief Operating Officer
About The Convergence Foundation:
The Convergence Foundation (TCF) is an Indian philanthropic foundation 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 (CSF).
Our mission is clear: to transform the lives of all Indians through rapid, sustained economic growth and inclusive development.
To achieve this, we focus on 3 pillars: (1) direct engines of economic growth that enable job creation; (2) human capital development through education and employability; and (3) development enablers that strengthen the philanthropic ecosystem and improve state capacity. 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
We believe that the government is the key actor for system change, and philanthropy's role is to strategically support the government. The proof is in the results: CSF's work helped build momentum on foundational learning and numeracy (FLN) and resulted in the NIPUN Bharat Mission, which by 2025 helped achieve the highest-ever Grade 3 level FLN outcomes in the Annual Status of Education Report across states. On the economic growth side, Foundation for Economic Development and Prosperiti have served as knowledge partners to the government and helped accelerate the "Reform Express, advancing the Prime Ministers mission of Viksit Bharat. These are only some of the system- and population-scale outcomes our portfolio of 20+ organisations has enabled.
Position Summary:
As TCF and our portfolio scales, technology and AI represent a significant (and untapped) opportunity to amplify our impact. We are early in this journey, but committed. Today, working with government systems is central to our theory of change, and is one of the largest force-multipliers for our work; we believe technology holds similar potential.
Across our portfolio, this is already taking shape. CSF has supported multiple EdTech initiatives, spanning from on-ground deployment to evidence generation. Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS) is using AI and automated phone surveys to improve how governments gather citizen feedback and deliver services. Air Pollution Action Group (APAG) is analysing large-scale datasets to improve their flagship dispersible sources program to address air pollution. These are just a few of the AI use cases already deployed or piloted across our portfolio. We see immense potential to go further: from improving destination management at top tourist sites and building tools that empower MSMEs at scale, to designing platforms that improve ease of doing business across industries and strengthening market linkages for government flagship skilling programmes.
To put this vision into action, we are looking for a Chief Technology Officer to set up and lead TCF's Technology and AI function. Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, this person will work as a technology strategist and co-builder with leaders and CXOs across TCF and our portfolio of 20+ organisations. The role will have four key mandates: (i) define and implement TCFs technology and AI strategy and roadmap; (i) envisioning breakthrough AI ideas that go beyond efficiency gains to enable fundamentally new approaches across program areas; (ii) co-designing technology strategy and identifying priority use cases for TCF and portfolio organisations; (iii) helping build and deploy solutions on-ground through co-development with leading technology partners and program leaders; and finally, (iv) making TCF itself an AI-native organisation.
We are deliberately keeping this role broad to attract the right person, someone who can shape TCF's technology direction and grow the function around their expertise. We expect that the Chief Technology Officer will have to build a lean, focused in-house team of 3-4 members, while achieving operational scale through partnerships with portfolio organisations and technology partners.
This role offers a rare opportunity to embed technology within organisations and programs that already have distribution at scale and a deep, ground-level understanding of the problems that matter. In its most ambitious form, this function will have deployed multiple AI solutions that would directly drive system- or population scale outcomes, while also building sector-shaping initiatives (e.g. collaboratives around technology and systems change, similar to TCF's Economic Growth Collaborative).
If you think at the level of systems and scale, and want to deploy technology for nation building, this is the role for you.
Key Responsibilities
- Shaping technology and AI strategy and roadmap
- Define TCF's overarching technology and AI strategy, including its philosophy on responsible AI use, human-in-the-loop principles, and AI policy for TCF and portfolio organisations
- Position TCF as a recognised leader in leveraging technology for real, outcome-level impact, engaging the broader ecosystem to establish evidence and proof points
- Identify high-impact technology and AI solutions
- Reimagine how AI can enable fundamentally new approaches and interventions, beyond efficiency or automation gains, across TCF's program areas and portfolio organisations
- Building and deploying solutions on-ground
- Co-develop and own solutions for high-impact AI use-cases, from prototype to production, in close collaboration with portfolio organisations and technology partners
- Partner with government counterparts to embed technology solutions into systemic reform efforts and institutional capacity building
- Own TCFs data, cybersecurity and technology architecture
- Establish and oversee data protection frameworks across TCF and portfolio organisations, ensuring compliance and resilience against cyber risks
- Guide technology architecture decisions for TCF and support portfolio organisations in thinking through their own infrastructure needs
- Building partnerships and ecosystem
- Establish and steward deep, multi-year partnerships with marquee AI technology providers (e.g. Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)
- Identify and mobilise funding available from partners, government, and philanthropy to support the technology agenda of TCF and portfolio organisations
- Represent TCF in relevant technology and AI forums, contributing to the building of digital public goods usable across the TCF network and wider ecosystem
- Driving organisational AI literacy
- Drive institution-wide AI fluency across TCF, establishing learning rituals, peer sharing, and hands-on experimentation across all functions
Ideal Candidate Profile:
- 15+ years of experience spanning technology leadership, senior engineering, and / or product management
- Track record of building and deploying technology solutions in complex, resource-constrained environments
Demonstrated ability to identify, onboard, and manage technology partners
- Entrepreneurial approach to resourcing, able to build via academic partnerships, short-term hires, etc.
- Collaborative mindset, comfortable working across philanthropy, government, and the private sector
Location: Full-time position based out of Delhi, India. We are open to a remote arrangement for exceptional candidates.
How to Apply: Reach out to our Head, Talent Acquisition: vishal@theconvergencefoundation.org to learn more or click here to submit your application.