About Development Alternatives (DA) Development Alternatives (DA), the world’s first social enterprise dedicated to sustainable development, has worked for over 40 years to create green, inclusive livelihoods at scale. Our mission is to enable 1 million sustainable livelihoods by 2030, focusing on entrepreneurship-led job creation, women’s economic empowerment, and community-driven social innovation. Role Overview DA is expanding its Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) portfolio, which includes large-scale initiatives supported by corporates, international development agencies, and government missions. The Program Manager will lead specific projects while jointly contributing to portfolio-wide strategy, innovation, and delivery. The position requires deep understanding of entrepreneurship and gender, proven program management experience, and the ability to engage effectively with corporates, international donors, and government institutions. The role requires a strong program management orientation, ensuring delivery, monitoring, and course correction coupled with the ability to provide strategic insights for scaling proven models. The position is ideal for a professional who combines operational excellence with systems thinking. Key Responsibilities:
- Program Management & Delivery
- Lead implementation of assigned WEE projects, ensuring high-quality delivery, compliance, and reporting.
- Develop work plans, budgets, and risk management strategies for projects under purview.
- Coordinate closely with the other team members to ensure cross-project alignment and synergies.
- Provide oversight to field operations and ensure smooth partner coordination.
- Strategic Innovation & Ecosystem Building
- Co-design and scale tools, processes, and prototypes that strengthen women-led entrepreneurship.
- Build convergence with local institutions, ecosystem stakeholders, and finance systems through CLF and community platforms.
- Strengthen existing prototypes and support scale strategies for replication across geographies.
- Monitoring, Tracking & Feedback Loop
- Work closely with the program and knowledge & learning team to design and use robust monitoring systems.
- Ensure implementation MEL frameworks and timely achievements of project goals.
- Facilitate two-way feedback: o Feed MEL data and insights into project management and adaptive decision-making. o Feed field learnings and operational realities back into MEL frameworks and tools.
- Support real-time course correction based on monitoring data and field evidence.
- Package the processes, knowledge and learning in forms of process manuals, toolkits, technical reports, and narratives for external transference.
- Contribute to secondary and field research, developing new social innovation methods and incorporate learning into knowledge products and Communication.
- Stakeholder Engagement, Representation and Others
- Build and sustain relationships with government officials, financial institutions, and ecosystem partners.
- Represent DA in external forums and knowledge platforms.
- Work in close collaboration with team members to ensure coherence across the WEE portfolio.
- Support building a culture of innovation, accountability, and shared ownership within the team.
- Contribute to the portfolio growth by taking up tasks as assigned by the Program . Required Qualifications & Experience
- Postgraduate degree in Social Sciences, Development Studies, Business Management, Economics, or related field.
- 5-8 years of experience in program management, with demonstrated expertise in women’s economic empowerment, entrepreneurship, or livelihoods.
- Experience managing CSR-funded and international donor-funded projects, with strong understanding of compliance and reporting requirements.
- Strong background in gender and entrepreneurship ecosystems.
- Proven ability to collaborate with government institutions and multi-stakeholder platforms.
- Solid experience in MEL systems, both qualitative and quantitative.
- Excellent communication, negotiation, and representation skills. Core Competencies
- Strategic and analytical thinking
- Strong stakeholder management and partnership skills
- Ability to balance multiple projects and priorities
- Leadership and team management
- Commitment to DA’s mission of sustainability and inclusion
