Head of Growth, Admissions and Community

PupilTree School, Ballari, Karnataka THE ROLE

You will move to Ballari and run the plan that grows PupilTree School's enrolment and fee revenue. The plan wins admissions first through current families who bring the families they know, and alongside that through a compliant outbound engine. You run it every day and own the admissions outcome: seats filled in the grades that have them, and families who stay.

- Experience: 6 to 8 years, with at least 3 years owning an admissions, enrolment or sales target for a location or territory
- Salary: ₹12 to 16 lakh a year, fixed, plus staff accommodation and your children's education at PupilTree School
- Location: Ballari, on campus, with field days across the city, Hosapete and nearby towns
- Reports to: The school's founders, working hand in hand with the principal, who owns the programme
- Team: About 8 to 12 people across admissions, telecalling, field and partnerships, plus a community coordinator from early 2027
- Tools: Our own software, AI calling agents and call-quality scoring, built and run by our technology partner
- Start: Ideally by 1 December 2026, inside the November to March admissions season

WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS

Families switch schools because people they trust tell them to, so the plan is built to make current families proud enough to say so. Referred families are worth more and stay longer, and cash rewards crowd out the goodwill this work runs on.

The system already does most of the remembering: a family graph of every household and tie, a next-best-action engine that puts one step in front of a named person each day, and a calling app with AI call-quality scoring. What it cannot do is lead people. Your job is to get teachers, counsellors, telecallers, field staff and partner principals acting on it week after week, test what works against a control group, change one thing every Friday, and turn it into admissions.

The pilot runs from October 2026 for 18 months. If it works, it becomes the playbook for the next school, and you will write it.

WHAT YOU OWN: THE SCORECARD

"Above baseline" targets are set after the first four weeks of measurement, agreed with the founders and principal.

- Admissions: net new students in grades with open seats for the 2027-28 intake, above 2026-27, against the seat gap signed by the principal
- Referral engine: enquiries naming a current family, per 100 current families per term, above baseline in the 2027-28 season
- Referral share: share of admissions that came through a current family, rising every term
- Retention: 90-day retention of new joiners; withdrawals below 2026-27
- Speed to lead: ad and form enquiries called within 5 minutes in working hours; every enquiry contacted within 1 working hour
- Channel economics: cost per admission and conversion by channel and cluster, against referral, reported weekly
- Feeder partners: 3 preschools (for Class 1) and 3 Class 10 schools (for Class 11) running test days; first 3 principal yeses by 20 December 2026
- Programme review: weekly note to every family, referral baseline recorded, numbers reported weekly, ready for the March review on 5 March 2027
- Trust: zero complaints of pressure selling or unsolicited contact; outbound calls only from registered promotional numbers,



never to people who opted out

WHAT YOU WILL DO

- Run the weekly rhythm. Lead the Friday 15-minute huddle (wins first, stuck items with an owner and a date, one change to a script or rule), review the dashboard with the principal every week, and act on any number stalled for two weeks.
- Know the market. Verify the top 20 schools in the catchment, map 15, 30 and 45-minute travel bands, agree the seat gap per grade, and keep the feeder map and cluster priorities current.
- Convert the families who come looking. Own the enquiry funnel: the free 20-minute Gap Check, the annual Talent and Gap Test with scholarships, home visits on request and a Transfer Desk that makes switching painless. Run outbound alongside referrals: local ads, telecalling and SMS from registered numbers, stalls, pop-up clinics and canvassing in priority clusters, only for grades with open seats.
- Build feeder partnerships. Make us the natural next step for preschools ending at UKG and schools ending at Class 10, with readiness screening, stream tests, reports within 48 hours and a written promise not to poach.
- Spread what families feel. Referral asks go out within 48 hours of a child's proud moment, never after a complaint. Run the events calendar, Neighbourhood Circles and alumni batches with the community coordinator.
- Protect delight, without owning it. Teachers own weekly notes home and learning-gap plans; you watch those numbers and make sure every complaint has an owner and a fix before anyone asks that family for anything.
- Lead the team. Hire, train and coach counsellors, telecallers, field executives and the partnerships lead. Private input targets and fast feedback, not per-admission incentives or public leaderboards. A call scored below 7 gets coaching the same day.
- Keep it clean and legal. Enforce data protection and consent law and telecom rules on promotional calls, record calls only with consent, and reach parents, never children.

YOUR FIRST 90 DAYS

- By day 30: every enquiry since June traced to its source; every new enquiry contacted within one working hour; seat gap by grade re-confirmed with the principal; team baselines in; six feeder principals met, with their decision by 20 December.
- By day 60: Gap Check and Talent Test open to outside families; ads and telecalling reporting cost per admission weekly; first partner test days run; referral gift-kit experiment read out by 31 January.
- By day 90: March review ready (admissions by source, referral baseline, weekly programme numbers); 2027-28 pipeline by grade against the seat gap; community coordinator hired or in the final round; your one-page plan for the next phase.

WHO YOU LEAD AND WORK WITH

You lead admissions and field counsellors, the telecalling lead and telecallers, field executives, the partnerships lead and, from March 2027, a community coordinator. You work for the programme the principal owns, alongside the academic head,



coordinators and teachers through shared metrics (you influence them, you do not manage them), the technology partner that builds the software and AI calling agents, and a data protection lawyer who signs off consent and calling rules.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

You have owned a local number with a field team behind you, in a place like Ballari, and won by earning trust rather than pushing. Strong fits: coaching-centre branch head, school admissions and marketing head, FMCG area sales manager in tier-2 and tier-3 markets, or school-partnerships manager at an edtech company.

Must have

- 6 to 8 years of work, with at least 3 years owning an admissions, enrolment or sales number for a location or territory
- Led a field team of 5 or more, with daily beats, reporting and coaching
- Fluent in English, Kannada and Telugu; Hindi or Urdu is a plus
- Ran ground activation: school or society events, stalls, scholarship tests, seminars or village and market activations
- Tech savvy: at ease with CRMs, spreadsheets and AI tools, and comfortable running a team from a phone app, a daily queue and a weekly dashboard, reading the numbers yourself
- Willing to live in Ballari and spend at least half of most weeks in the field

Solid plus

- Ran scholarship or talent tests that fed admissions
- Built tie-ups with preschools, schools or tuition centres
- Ran performance ads or telecalling campaigns and tracked cost per admission
- Family or roots in Ballari, Hosapete, Raichur, Kurnool or Anantapur

Not a fit

- You grow numbers mainly through pressure, discounts or aggressive door-to-door selling
- You need per-admission incentives to do your best work
- You have only worked in digital marketing or only inside a classroom, and never owned a field number

PAY AND TERMS

Pay is fixed and set above what school admissions heads usually earn, because there is no per-admission incentive in this role or your team's. Team wins are celebrated together as events, never promised as money.
- Fixed pay: ₹12 to 16 lakh a year, depending on experience
- Staff accommodation in Ballari and your children's education at PupilTree School
- Relocation support, field expenses reimbursed, company phone and work SIM
- School calendar, plus evenings and weekends around events and the admissions season, with time off in lieu
- If the pilot works, you lead the playbook and rollout to the next school

HOW TO APPLY

Send your CV and a half-page note on the best local growth result you have delivered: the number before, the number after, and what you did differently. The process takes about three weeks:
- Phone screen, 30 minutes: your background, languages, the move to Ballari, and how you think about pressure versus trust.
- Take-home catchment exercise: using public school data for Ballari, pick the three grades and two neighbourhoods you would work first, and say why in one page.
- Field day in Ballari: visit two schools at pickup time and one preschool, then role-play two calls: asking a proud parent to forward a free Gap Check to a relative, and pitching a free talent test to a Class 10 school principal.
- Founders and principal, 60 minutes: your first 90 days, and a time you missed a target and what you changed.
- References from a past manager and a past team member.

📌 Head of School Growth (Ballari)
🏢 Pupiltree.ai
📍 Ballari