About The/Nudge
The/Nudge is an action institute building resilient livelihoods to alleviate poverty. We work with women, farmers, tribals, and youth across rural development, agriculture, skilling, and economic inclusion, in partnership with 15+ central and state governments.
Our economic inclusion journey towards serving 25 million Indians spans 10 states and currently reaches over 1.5 million people. Through our incubator, accelerator, and grand challenges, we have supported 200+ social entrepreneurs, including Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees, Earthshot Prize winners, and nationally recognized changemakers.
Founded with the support of 130+ eminent philanthropists, 40+ corporates, and 15+ foundations, The/Nudge is working towards a poverty-free India, within our lifetime.
Set up with support from 90+ eminent philanthropists , 40+ corporates and 15+ foundations including Gates, Mackenzie Scott, Vinod Khosla, Nandan Nilekani, Tata Trusts, Skoll, Meta, LinkedIn, HDFC, Mphasis, KPMG and L'Oreal, we are contributing towards a "poverty-free India, within our lifetime". About the Program
The InSight Program is dedicated to creating a Presbyopia-free India, with a strong focus on empowering rural communities. Over 300 million Indians suffer from uncorrected presbyopia - an age-related condition that causes blurred near vision. More than 70 million of them work in occupations that require clear near vision for daily productivity. Left uncorrected, this condition leads to an estimated $14 billion in annual productivity losses in India alone, disproportionately affecting rural households that depend on manual and precision-based work for their livelihoods.
Evidence shows that the solution is simple and highly effective. Randomized controlled trials conducted in Assam and Bangladesh have demonstrated that providing reading glasses can increase productivity by 34% and boost incomes by 20%. Despite this, access to affordable screening and reading glasses remains limited in rural areas.
In response, the InSight team is developing a market-driven Entrepreneurship Model designed to create both health impact and livelihood opportunity. Under this model, local community entrepreneurs are identified, trained, equipped, and supported to conduct near-vision screenings and dispense affordable reading glasses within their designated geographies.
Entrepreneurs receive structured training in presbyopia screening and customer engagement. They then conduct door-to-door screenings and sell reading glasses to individuals who fail the vision test. This approach creates a sustainable micro-enterprise opportunity for the entrepreneur while simultaneously improving vision, health and productivity among beneficiaries.
The long-term goal of the Entrepreneurship Model is to build a nationwide network of 10,000 entrepreneurs by 2033 and distribute 9 crore reading glasses across India. By doing so, the program seeks to significantly improve both vision health outcomes and rural economic opportunity at scale.
Tamil Nadu is a priority state in this journey, and the State Lead will play a central role in building a high-performing, scalable, and financially sustainable state model.
Role Responsibilities
The State Lead will be responsible for the implementation, scale, and overall performance of the Entrepreneurship Model across Tamil Nadu. This role carries full accountability for achieving state-level targets, ensuring operational excellence, and building a sustainable network of entrepreneurs across districts and blocks.
The State Lead will manage multiple districts through Team Leads and ensure that district-level operations translate into measurable outcomes — including entrepreneur onboarding, active participation rates, monthly screenings conducted, reading glasses distributed, and income generation.
This is a leadership role that requires a strong balance of strategy, field execution, data-driven decision-making, and stakeholder engagement.
Key Responsibilities
Program Leadership & Strategy:
- Lead the state-wide implementation of the Reading Glasses and Livelihood Program across Tamil Nadu, ensuring alignment with national objectives and timelines.
- Develop detailed monthly and quarterly operational plans that translate central goals into district-wise and block-wise targets. Ensure that rollouts are systematic, well-sequenced, and supported with adequate training, inventory, and field supervision.
- Maintain strict adherence to approved budgets, operational guidelines, and quality standards. Monitor cost efficiency and ensure financial discipline across districts.
- Continuously assess performance trends and operational realities across districts, identifying risks, gaps, and opportunities for improvement. Design and implement corrective action plans where required.
- Drive a culture of accountability and outcome orientation across the state team.
Team Management:
- Supervise Team Leads and ensure that each effectively manages 10–15 Block Leads within their assigned geography.
- Ensure activation and sustained productivity of approximately 600–700 entrepreneurs across Tamil Nadu in the initial phase, with clear roadmaps for future scale.
- Set structured performance goals for Team Leads and conduct regular review meetings to track progress against:
- Entrepreneur onboarding and activation
- Monthly screening numbers
- Glasses distribution volumes
- Income generated per entrepreneur
- Retention and activity rates
- Provide mentorship and performance feedback to strengthen field leadership capacity. Intervene in underperforming districts with targeted support and structured improvement plans.
- Build a cohesive, high-performance state team capable of delivering consistent outcomes across geographies.
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting:
- Ensure strong data governance and reporting discipline across all districts in Tamil Nadu.
- Review state-level dashboards and field data regularly to assess accuracy, completeness, and trends in entrepreneur performance. Validate critical metrics through field visits and random verification checks.
- Identify operational bottlenecks — including low activation, drop-offs in screenings, supply chain delays, or training gaps — and deploy corrective measures proactively.
- Ensure timely and structured reporting to the Entrepreneurship Program Head and central team, including periodic performance summaries and impact updates.
- Contribute to strengthening monitoring systems and improving operational transparency across the state.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Represent the InSight Entrepreneurship Model at state-level meetings, government reviews, and CSR forums.
- Build and maintain strong working relationships with state government departments, rural livelihood missions, district administration, and other relevant stakeholders to ensure smooth implementation and convergence.
- Collaborate with local development organizations and community institutions to support awareness drives, entrepreneur mobilization, and program credibility.
- Ensure that the program is positioned as a scalable, impact-driven initiative aligned with state development priorities.
Program Expansion
- Identify high-performing districts and document best practices that can be replicated across the state.
- Support planning and readiness for expansion into new districts post-pilot by assessing operational capacity, team readiness, and supply systems.
- Ensure that systems, processes, and training frameworks are standardized to enable sustainable scale without compromising quality.
- Develop forward-looking expansion plans aligned with the broader national ambition of reaching 10,000 entrepreneurs by 2033.
Qualifications and Skills
- Minimum 5+ years of experience managing multi-district or state-level programs, preferably in rural operations, livelihoods, healthcare outreach, or entrepreneurship-driven initiatives.
- Demonstrated track record of driving measurable performance outcomes in distributed field teams.
- Strong leadership capability and ability to manage geographically dispersed teams.
- Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, particularly in government-facing roles.
- Proficiency in Google Workspace, Excel, and data dashboards with strong comfort in interpreting operational data.
- Fluency in Tamil and English is mandatory.
- Willingness to travel extensively across districts within Tamil Nadu.
What’s in it for you?
- Own your growth: An impact-led learning environment encourages Nudgesters to invest in their learning and capacity building needs through initiatives and policies, including L&D wallet, individual development plan and internal role change opportunities.
- Find your tribe: Our hiring philosophy emphasises intent, attitude, smarts and skills, in that order, to build a cohesive environment for Nudgesters. The organisation is committed to curating people-centric policies, enhancing how employees experience life at The/Nudge.
- Take big bets: Organisational initiatives are intended to facilitate Nudgesters with a view to the big picture, illustrated by our impact across 50000+ households, 15+ governments, 200+ social enterprises and Charcha: India’s largest social sector convening forum.
- Make it happen: A product-based approach in an action-biased environment empowers Nudgesters to implement audacious plans. Driven to fail fast, we endeavour to optimise resources in favour of programs that align with our scale ambition.
You can learn more about what we do and how we do it through this deck. PS: Please note that this role is contractual (for a period of 12 months, and can be extended).
We aspire to be an inclusive and diverse organization and encourage qualified individuals irrespective of their religion, caste, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or any other dimension of identity, to apply.
