(Associate) Director, Expansion & Partnerships, AI Access Initiative (EAII)

This position is with EAII Advisors, Evidence Action’s technical partner in India.

About EAII 

EAII Advisors, Evidence Action’s technical partner in India, supports state governments in delivering evidence-based public health programs, including safe drinking water initiatives and school and Anganwadi-based National Deworming Day and iron and folic acid supplementation. Operating across 10 states, EAII Advisors provides technical assistance to ministries of health, education, water, and women and child development, reducing health burdens in impoverished communities and improving the long-term wellbeing of children and families. 

For more information, read about our work here: About Evidence Action and EAII

About The AI Access Initiative (2AI)

We're at an inflection point in artificial intelligence – presenting both tremendous potential opportunity and risk for people in developing countries. AI capabilities are improving on a timescale measured in months, while development systems often move on timescales measured in decades. Much of the technology needed for positive impact exists today, but few organizations exist to bridge research, deployment, and scaled implementation: we must act now to ensure AI's benefits reach people in poverty in LMICs.

Incubated at Evidence Action, we're scaling The AI Access Initiative, an organization focused on scaling AI-enabled 'big bets' to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of people in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We operate at the intersection of global development actors, top AI labs, and leading researchers to drive meaningful access to AI's benefits for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty globally. We create "public good," open-sourced playbooks, toolkits, and insights that define how to design and launch tractable and impactful AI-enabled programs. Given the scale of opportunity, we expect our portfolio to expand substantially, but to start, we're scaling two programs focused on AI in Agriculture and AI in Health.

We are led by former Evidence Action CEO Kanika Bahl, a founding member of Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust, and advised by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer; Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic; and Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs for Alphabet and Google. This work builds on Evidence Action's track record reaching 530M+ people with cost-effective, evidence-based programs across 9 countries in Africa and Asia, with a focus on last-mile delivery.

The Role

2AI is building fast. We have a founding team, two live program portfolios, and a pipeline of opportunities that will drive significant expansion. The programs we are running have credible pathways to 100s of millions of people. While incubated at Evidence Action, we plan to spin out in Q4 '26.

Our Agriculture portfolio is scaling AI-enabled weather forecasting services to reach tens of millions of smallholder farmers, in close partnership with state and national governments in India. The next phase is to expand this work: deciding which countries we move into next and building what it takes to operate there. We are seeking a rigorous, high-ownership Associate Director or Director, Expansion & Partnerships to own that expansion end to end, from market selection and government and telco partnerships through to standing up offices and teams in new markets.

This role is based in India and sits on 2AI's global team, reporting into the VP, Agriculture. It includes people leadership, managing at least one senior manager across the program. You will work closely with our India country team and other in-country team members to scope and expand programming.

You Will:

• Identify new markets for forecast delivery: In conjunction with the VP, Agriculture, develop the criteria for market selection and prioritize countries to expand into.
• Stand up new markets: Once a new market is confirmed, support the set-up of offices and the hiring of high-quality staff with the requisite skills to implement large-scale forecast delivery.
• Oversee development of forecasts for new regions: Collaborate with academics to ensure forecasts are developed, tested, and ready to disseminate in new countries. This could include hiring and managing post-doctoral students to support in model benchmarking or dataset support.
• Lead telco partnerships: Identify target telcos and lead engagement, negotiation, and relationship management to set up sustainable telco-based dissemination systems.
• Hire and manage in-country scoping support: Where staff on the ground are needed to determine whether there is an opportunity in a new market, hire and oversee them, for example short-term consultants.
• Build and maintain government relationships: Create new and nurture existing relationships with the government bodies needed to operate and disseminate forecasts in a new market, including agriculture departments and meteorological agencies.
• Partner with stakeholders: Create new and nurture existing relationships with academic institutions, delivery partners, and other agriculture organizations. 
• Develop best practices and thought leadership: Across all of the above, build best practices and replicable toolkits that can be applied elsewhere by others. Share key learnings with the sector through toolkits, blogs, and other public-good resources.

Requirements

The ideal candidate is an exceptional builder with the ability to drive outcomes in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment. Given the startup nature of this work, we seek contributors with high throughput, strong work ethic, and willingness to lean in and work extended hours.

You will likely have:

• 7-10+ years' experience as a builder in international development, consulting, or an agriculture adjacent organization.
• Strong communication skills in English with experience working with international teams.
• A proven track record of significantly scaling organizations and/or programs to deliver impact at scale, preferably in close partnership with national governments. Direct experience taking a program or organization into a new region is a plus.
• Demonstrated success building and negotiating partnerships with governments and the private sector. Experience with telcos, mobile network operators, or platform partners is a strong plus.
• Training or early career experience in a high-rigor environment (e.g., top-tier management consulting, high-growth NGO program leadership, strategy/econ research) and the ability to rapidly get up to speed in new technical areas including AI/ML forecasting concepts.
• A track record as a strong people manager and builder: able to set clear standards, empower others, and cultivate a high-performance culture across distributed and field-based teams.
• Experience working with Asian and/or African governments to drive large-scale change, with a strong preference for direct experience working with ministries of agriculture or national meteorological agencies.
• High EQ and the ability to influence across diverse partners, from AI/forecasting researchers to frontline delivery staff to senior government officials.
• Strong fluency with AI tools, and eager to experiment, learn, and adapt to emerging technologies.
• Comfort with ambiguity and fast iteration; can define and test hypotheses, adapt quickly, and maintain focus on impact.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to synthesize complex technical ideas (e.g., AI/ML weather forecasting language) into crisp narratives for different audiences.
• Willingness and ability to travel extensively internationally (~40-50%) to prospective and current markets across low-and-middle income countries.
• Passion for the mission of ensuring that the benefits of frontier AI reach the world's poorest populations, while mitigating its downside risks.

Position Location

This role is based in India, with flexibility on location within the country. The role sits on 2AI's global team rather than within a single country program, and requires significant international travel (~40-50%) to prospective and current markets. Evidence Action is an Equal Opportunity Employer with a commitment to diversity. All individuals, regardless of personal characteristics, are encouraged to apply.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in India. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visas at this time.

Benefits

EAII provides a comprehensive benefits package for employees . Benefits include:

• Comprehensive health insurance with IPD and OPD provisions,
• Life and Accidental insurance,
• PF, ESIC and Gratuity as per statutory requirements,
• Generous leave,
• Mental and physical wellbeing benefits
• Learning & Development benefits
• Avenues for engagement and recognition

Compensation: Pay will be competitive and commensurate with the individual's credentials, experience and previous pay scale.

This role will initially be housed at EAII Advisors, Evidence Action's technical partner in India, with the explicit plan to transfer with the AI Access Initiative as a founding member of the team when that project is spun out as a new entity later this year. At that point, benefits and policies may change.