Senior Associate / Associate Manager - Media and PR, Bengaluru, India

Bengaluru

Location: Bengaluru

About the Role

Janaagraha is recruiting a Senior Associate / Associate Manager - Media and Public Relations to strengthen the organisation's media engagement, public visibility, and institutional positioning.

This is a strategic media and public-positioning role focused on translating Janaagraha's policy expertise and institutional credibility into sustained media presence across national, regional, vernacular, policy, and digital-first platforms.

The role involves building and managing relationships with journalists, editors, commentators, media platforms, and external communication partners. It requires strong news judgement, stakeholder management, excellent writing and editing skills, and the ability to simplify complex urban-governance and city-systems issues into clear, credible public narratives. The role will work closely with programme teams, leadership, and the Communications team to identify media opportunities, develop storylines, manage outreach, support thought leadership, prepare spokespersons, and strengthen Janaagraha's visibility as a leading voice on urban governance and city-systems reform.

KEY RESPONSIBILITES

Media Strategy and Engagement

• Strengthen Janaagraha's visibility across national, regional, vernacular, policy, business, and digital-first media platforms.
• Build and maintain relationships with journalists, editors, columnists, podcasters, and media influencers across relevant beats.
• Maintain and regularly update a structured media database across national, regional, and sectoral media.
• Implement Janaagraha's media and PR strategy aligned with organisational priorities, policy calendars, and communication goals

Thought Leadership and Story Development

• Identify media opportunities emerging from Janaagraha's research, programmes, partnerships, publications, events, and policy engagements.
• Build a strong thought-leadership pipeline through op-eds, authored articles, interviews, expert comments, podcasts, explainers, and data-led stories.
• Create and manage a quarterly media calendar linked to policy developments, report launches, public debates, institutional milestones, and governance events.

Media Relations and Reputation Management

• Coordinate media briefings, editorial roundtables, and background sessions to deepen understanding of urban governance and city-systems reform.
• Monitor and analyse media coverage using both qualitative and quantitative indicators, including message pull-through, publication relevance, sentiment, share of voice, and policy relevance.
• Support reputation and risk management through holding statements, response lines, internal advisories, and escalation notes.
• Coordinate with PR agencies, consultants, designers, and external vendors to ensure timely and high-quality delivery.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Graduate/Postgraduate degree in Communications, Journalism, Media Studies, Public Policy, Political Science, International Relations, or a related field preferred.
• 4-8 years of experience in media relations, PR, corporate communications, development communications, journalism, public affairs, or agency communications.
• Demonstrated experience in media outreach, story pitching, press material development, securing coverage, and spokesperson preparation.
• Strong understanding of the Indian media landscape across English, regional, vernacular, business, policy, and digital-first media.
• Existing media relationships in public policy, governance, cities, infrastructure, finance, development, or civic affairs would be an advantage.
• Excellent writing and editing skills across formats including press releases, op-eds, speeches, newsletters, web copy, social media, and briefing notes.
• Ability to work with technical and policy-oriented content, research outputs, and data-led narratives.
• Experience in the non-profit, policy, governance, urban development, consulting, media, or development sector is desirable.
• Proficiency in English is essential. Knowledge of Kannada, Hindi, or another Indian language would be an added advantage.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Strong news judgement and understanding of public discourse.
• Excellent relationship-management and stakeholder-engagement skills.
• Sound judgement in handling sensitive communication and reputation-related matters.
• Proactive, responsive, and solutions-oriented approach.
• Strong interest in urban governance, public policy, civic participation, and institutional reform.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Janaagraha is an equal opportunity employer and offers competitive remuneration commensurate with experience, expertise, and skillsets.

This role is based in Bengaluru and reports to the Senior Manager - Media and Communication.

Please write in to work@janaagraha.org with your CV and "Senior Associate - Media and PR" in the subject line