Chief Operating Officer (COO) | In office, Hyderabad

Pay: ₹30,000.00 - ₹60,000.00 per month

About UMEED

UMEED dismantles barriers to female self-reliance by addressing the individual, family, and institutional ecosystem through integrated programs like FirstLeap Career Readiness &

Empowerment Program, Break-the-Barrier Program, and Sahyog Train-the-Trainer Program. We empower women with agency while transforming parental mindsets and educator capacity to turn traditional ‘gatekeeping’ into a launchpad for lifelong personal, social, and financial independence. Through these programs, UMEED actively advances SDGs 1, 5, and 8.

By means of our 3-bucket focus on skill building, mindset development and access to exposure, we aim to build the spirit of ‘Voice, Choice and Agency’ in women who will not only be empowered to take charge of their own lives, but will also become proactive catalysts of a sustainable continuation of these values to their communities.

About the Role The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is a crucial senior leadership role responsible for architecting and executing UMEED’s operational strategy. Working in close, trusted partnership with the Co-Founders,

the COO will translate strategic vision into seamless, scalable execution. We are looking for an operationally rigorous leader who can embed corporate process discipline,

financial prudence, and robust system tracking into a grassroots social impact model. Crucially, as a leader in a gender-focused organization, the COO must champion an internal culture of empathy, psychological safety, and high accountability, ensuring that our internal operations are as empowering as the programs we deliver to the community.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Leadership & Operational Excellence

 Translate Vision to Scale: Partner with the Co-Founders to design and drive the organization’s multi-year operational strategy, annual organisational plans, and growth milestones.

 Institutionalize Process Discipline: Streamline internal workflows, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and cross-functional communications to bridge work efficiency with grassroots impact.

 Review & Optimize: Lead comprehensive organizational strategy sessions and quarterly reviews to evaluate performance, optimize vertical workflows, and refine institutional design.

2. Program Oversight, Quality & Rigor





 High-Impact Execution: Oversee the end-to-end delivery of all flagship programs (FirstLeap, Break-the-Barrier, Sahyog), ensuring exceptional quality, timeline adherence, and deep alignment with gender-transformative goals.

 Data-Driven Guardrails: Partner with the MEL team to institutionalize robust Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning frameworks, ensuring qualitative shifts (mindsets, agency) and quantitative metrics actively drive operational pivots.

 Funder & Grant Compliance: Guarantee absolute alignment with grant conditions, tracking program benchmarks strictly to satisfy diverse domestic and international donor requirements.

3. Financial Stewardship & Compliance

 Resource Optimization: Oversee organizational budgeting, financial modeling, forecasting, and strategic resource allocation across multiple program geographies.

 Rigorous Governance: Enforce financial accountability, maintain audit readiness, and ensure total compliance with statutory regulations and donor-mandated financial policies.

 Cost Efficiency: Innovate cost-effective strategies to maximize beneficiary-directed impact, keeping overheads lean while maintaining structural excellence.

4. People, Culture & Values-Driven HR

 Champion an Empowering Culture: Oversee human resources to foster a high-performance, empathetic, and mission-aligned workplace culture that mirrors UMEED’s values of gender equity and inclusion.

 Talent Architecture: Drive recruitment, onboarding, structured performance review frameworks, and continuous learning/professional development paths for a diverse, multidisciplinary team.  Conflict Resolution: Navigate internal team dynamics and operational friction points with high emotional intelligence, equity, and timely decisiveness.

5. Strategic Partnerships & Stakeholder Ecosystems

 Ecosystem Synergy: Build and maintain high-level institutional relationships with government bodies, corporate CSR partners,



and community stakeholders.

 Fundraising Support: Collaborate with Co-Founders on resource mobilization, proposal development, and high-stakes donor engagements, effectively communicating UMEED's social return on investment.

 External Representation: Serve as a powerful ambassador for UMEED in external forums, sector networks, and steering committees.

Qualifications

- Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA), Public Policy, Social Work, Development

Studies, or a related field.
- 7–10 years of progressive professional experience, with at least 3 years in a senior leadership or executive operations role within the development or corporate sector.
- A deep understanding of the social sector landscape in India, with a specific passion for gender equity, women’s economic pathways, and ecosystem transformation.
- Exceptional command over project management frameworks, financial budgeting tools, data reporting systems, and workflow automation platforms.
- Proven ability to manage, mentor, and inspire multi-tiered field and enabling functions teams, balancing empathy with strict process accountability.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English; conversational fluency in Telugu or

Hindi is highly advantageous for regional government and field-level engagement.

Additional Requirements

- Flexibility to navigate peak program periods, ecosystem launches, or high-levelmilestone events/ ceremonies with hands-on dedication.
- Willingness to travel across Telangana and other expansion states for program audits, strategic partnerships, and donor reviews.

What’s in it for you

- Play a pivotal role in shaping the growth trajectory of a highly respected, rapidly evolving organization making a tangible, systemic dent in gender inequality.
- Enjoy the high-trust independence to design operational structures, pilot innovative management methodologies, and establish industry-best practices for NGO operations.
- Enjoy the autonomy to shape organizational systems and define strategic direction.

How to apply

Email your CV & Cover Letter to – [email protected] with the subject line “Application for the position of Chief Operating Officer.”

We are urgently hiring for this role. Interviews will be taken on a rolling basis.

📌 Chief Operating Officer (Hyderabad)
🏢 UMEED
📍 Hyderabad