Founded seven years ago, The Karta Initiative bridges the gap between marginalised youth and world-class opportunity. The problem Karta addresses is that youth from the world's most underprivileged communities fail to access quality education and workplace opportunities. This inequality of access is a loss not only for individuals and their communities, but also for the institutions they could otherwise join and society at large. Karta’s research and experience show that the weakest part of the system is the transition from school to university and employment. Millions of talented students lose out, as do thousands of institutions.

Karta seeks to address this by working with youths from the pan-Indian government schooling system, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, and an ecosystem of supporters to prepare young people from marginalised communities to study at world-class universities. Karta works face-to-face alongside local teachers and in “blended” models using its bespoke technology platform, Karta Connect. Karta’s work helps to develop awareness of appropriate career pathways and 21st century skills, and to raise funding for scholarships. The Karta Initiative currently works with over 1,700 students, is partnered with over 20 government schools, active in nine Indian states, and has formed direct partnerships with 10 universities. Karta has now supported 14 students to study at world-class universities, including Oxford, Imperial, UCL, Edinburgh, Bristol, McGill, Toronto, Queen’s Western and Huron as well as top Indian universities.

Karta is focused on three key areas of development. Firstly, it is working to scale up and reach more students through programmatic development and through leveraging technology; secondly, it is continuing to focus on deepening university partnerships to reduce the financial cost to Karta of supporting students; and thirdly, it is working to achieve financial sustainability. The Karta Initiative is a UK-registered charity.

The Chair's relationship with the CEO is key, and the new Chair must be comfortable adopting a coach and mentor approach, but nevertheless acting for the board as the CEO’s line report and engaging in decision making.

Karta is seeking a Chair who will act as an ambassador for the charity, building relationships with universities, networks and personal contacts, pro-actively seeking and facilitating opportunities for the charity to secure further funding for its work

Together with the Board, the Chair will oversee the strategy of the charity: ensuring that impact is maximised, the movement and individuals flourish, the messaging is effective, relationships are developed, and the finances become sustainable.

The Chair will also, critically, ensure the good governance of the charity and its Board, and oversee the recruitment of new Trustees when necessary.

Karta is an ambitious, mission-driven organisation and the new Chair must be an impressive and dynamic individual with a demonstrable track record of achievements.

The relationship with the Karta CEO is key, and so experience mentoring, coaching and managing exceptional leaders is essential. The Chair will help build partnerships for the charity with universities, donors and high-profile corporates and so demonstrable experience doing this is also essential.

The new Chair’s background should also bring deep experience in helping to refine a value proposition, shape messaging and build partnerships. This experience might have been gained in strategy, sales, marketing, start-ups, fundraising or elsewhere. Karta operates across India, the UK and Canada, so international fluency is a prerequisite, but it is critical that the new Chair is comfortable engaging in the pragmatic, low-level decision making of a micro-organisation. Previous formal chairing experience is not necessary, but as Karta has an extensive and impressive community of stakeholders, advisers and influencers, as well as an Indian Board of Directors, experience managing and aligning such a group is important - as well as adopting a collaborative and consensus building approach. Karta has the highest ethical and professional standards and the new Chair must demonstrate leadership in this regard.

With a focus on expanding its team and programmes in Indian rural communities, the Karta Initiative would welcome applications from candidates who have a personal connection to India but this role is based in the UK, leading the UK Board of Trustees. All candidates will have a deep passion for the transformative impact of education and be driven by Karta’s mission of enabling young people from low-income rural communities to access world-class educational and employment opportunities.

This role is unremunerated. The time commitment is 1-2 days per month, including one Board meeting per month and additional ad hoc calls or meetings when needed. Board meetings are remote so candidates from across the UK are welcome. The Karta Initiative promotes discretionary travel to India where possible to see the charity's work.