Director - Public Engagement and Communications, Bengaluru, India

Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy is a Bengaluru-based non-profit working to transform the quality of life in India's cities and towns. Since 2001, Janaagraha has partnered with citizens and governments to strengthen the core systems of city governance—municipal finance, urban planning, citizen participation, and institutional reform—so that India's cities become more inclusive, sustainable, and liveable.

Janaagraha is recognised for its credibility with government, depth of policy understanding, and rare ability to translate reform ideas into execution at scale.

India's urban future depends on whether fixing city-systems becomes a widely shared public agenda—understood, valued, and acted upon by political leadership, senior administrators, institutional partners, civic leaders, and citizens alike.

While technical solutions for better cities are increasingly well understood, sustained reform requires public narratives that align expectations, build consensus, and create momentum across institutions and society.

As Janaagraha scales its ambition and national presence, it seeks a senior leader to steward its public voice and civic engagement. Our ambition is to engage every decision-maker in government, every opinion leader in our cities, and every civic leader in every neighbourhood in every city in India!

The Director - Public Engagement and Communications will shape how Janaagraha's work and ideas are understood by:

• Political leaders in office
• Senior bureaucratic decision-makers
• Opinion leaders, including business and civic leaders
• Donors and institutional civil society partners
• Civic leaders and citizens
• Current, potential and past team members

This is a Director-level leadership role, equivalent in stature to other programmatic Directors, and central to Janaagraha's ability to advance city-systems reform as a shared national priority.

KEY RESPONSIBILITES

The Director will lead Janaagraha's public narrative, communications strategy, and support civic leadership engagement, ensuring the organisation's voice is credible, coherent, and resonant across policy, philanthropy and public audiences.

The role combines strategic judgment, disciplined execution, and strong people leadership, and requires comfort operating within complex political and institutional environments while remaining firmly non-partisan. We are looking for someone who is equally passionate and competent in communicating about transforming India's cities!

We are detailing the role below.

Voice and Positioning

• Shape and steward Janaagraha's overarching public narrative on cities, citizenship, and governance reform.
• Ensure coherence and consistency of messaging across programs, platforms, and audiences.
• Position Janaagraha as a trusted, non-partisan, solutions-oriented institution in conversations on city governance and reform.
• Design and create world-class institutional products and properties (website, presentations, newsletters, brochures, podcasts etc) to amplify Janaagraha's voice and positioning

Public Discourse

• Design communications strategies that contribute to agenda-setting and informed discourse among political leaders, senior bureaucracy, opinion leaders, and institutional funders.
• Engage constructively with moments of public attention—policy debates, civic challenges, reform opportunities— bringing clarity, evidence, and solutions into the conversation.
• Support leadership positioning in policy forums, convenings, media interactions, and institutional dialogues.
• Conceptualise and deliver large-scale public and citizen-facing campaigns that build understanding, participation, and momentum around city reform.
• Translate complex governance and systems issues into compelling narratives that are accessible without being simplistic. Connect everyday symptoms of civic issues to systems change narratives.

Communications Strategy and Execution

• Oversee high-quality execution across mainstream media, digital platforms, social media, video, press, events, and convenings.
• Build systems and processes that enable responsiveness, speed, and discipline in communications.
• Balance long-term narrative building with short-cycle, high-impact interventions.
• Build and maintain Janaagraha's stakeholder contact database; design and implement a key stakeholder outreach and engagement strategy

Regional Reach and Inclusive Communication

• Strengthen engagement beyond national and metropolitan audiences, including regional media and local civic ecosystems.
• Leverage technology and AI-enabled tools to support multilingual communication, localisation, and scale.

Team Leadership and Organisational Collaboration

• Lead, manage, and mentor a high-performing communications and engagement team.
• Set clear expectations, build leadership capacity within the team, and foster a culture of rigour, creativity, and accountability.
• Work closely with the CEO, program Directors, and senior leadership as a strategic partner — helping shape Janaagraha's public agenda, not merely executing requests.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

We are seeking a senior leader with the credibility, judgment, and ambition to operate at the intersection of public narrative, institutions, and civic outcomes.

• 20+ years of professional experience in strategic communications, media, public affairs, public engagement, or related fields.
• Demonstrated experience managing and leading teams in high-expectation environments (this is a non-negotiable requirement).
• Ability to understand complex systems reform work and communicate it in simple terms for a wide variety of audiences
• Proven ability to shape narratives and execute communications strategies in complex, multi-stakeholder contexts.
• Strong grounding in digital communications, social media, and contemporary storytelling formats, including video.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• A nuanced understanding of India's political economy, public institutions, and administrative decision-making.
• Experience contributing to public discourse, agenda-setting, or consensus-building involving government, business leaders, or civil society.
• Direct experience designing or leading large-scale citizen campaigns with measurable reach and engagement.
• Experience engaging with senior political leaders, bureaucrats, institutional donors, and opinion leaders
• Comfort working across languages and regions, with technology-enabled approaches to localisation.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

What are Janaagraha's Culture Codes

We expect our leaders to live our Culture Codes!

• I take ownership - I follow through relentlessly
• I apply systems thinking - I focus on root causes, not symptoms
• I practice urgent patience - I act decisively while respecting long timelines
• I choose depth - I value rigour over superficial wins
• I engage constructively - I collaborate across differences
• I strive to excel - I hold a high bar for quality
• I care - I lead with integrity, empathy, and respect

What Success Looks Like

• Janaagraha is recognised as a credible, authoritative, and empathetic voice on city governance by political leaders, senior bureaucrats, donors, business and civic leaders.
• Fixing city-systems gains greater salience as a shared public priority across elite and civic discourse.
• Citizens engage meaningfully with Janaagraha's campaigns, ideas, and platforms across regions.
• The public engagement and communications function operates as a strategic, high-impact capability, led with confidence and maturity.

Location & Commitment

• Bengaluru based; fulltime, hands-on presence needed!