Director, AI and Digital Transformation (DPI and Digital Governance)

What matters most

• Build and own the DPI domain

  Source-backed: The director owns offerings, pricing, quality, the domain budget and a revenue target. ICDIA is its first substantial engagement; the role must build a pipeline beyond it and carry opportunities to signed scope.

• Deliver ICDIA’s milestone-linked work

  Source-backed: Direct two concurrent workstreams, three functional leads and a network of experts and consultants. Own sequencing, deliverables that trigger payment, the risk register and escalation.

• Steward client and funder commitments

  Source-backed: Serve as APLYD’s principal counterpart to the ICDIA Chief Executive, secure approval of the annual workplan, and own milestone and narrative reporting, budget variance and formal scope or timeline changes.

• Exercise DPI and digital-governance judgment

  Source-backed: Maintain relationships with Indian ministries, diplomatic missions and platform owners, while assessing platform architecture, transferability and digital public goods with engineers and institutional leaders. Responsible, sophisticated AI use is mandatory.

• Build capability that lasts beyond the engagement

  Source-backed: Develop the team’s capability over three years and transfer procedures, assets, rubrics and relationships to ICDIA, with a costed plan for operations after the investment period.

Likely challenges to think through

• Protect delivery while growing a new domain

  Preparation hypothesis: ICDIA’s immediate milestones may compete for leadership time and budget with origination and reusable domain materials. Prepare an example of how you would prioritize delivery, quality and pipeline work without assuming extra capacity.

• Adapt sequencing without losing funder control

  Preparation hypothesis: Country demand or solution readiness could shift while payment remains tied to milestones. Prepare a decision framework for resequencing, documenting risks and budget variance, and seeking formal approval when scope or timing must change.

• Align institutions with different decision paths

  Preparation hypothesis: Platform owners, ministries, diplomatic missions and funders may differ in authority, budgets and technical priorities. Prepare to explain how you would map decision-makers, test whether a platform transfers to another context, and turn interest into an agreed scope.

• Hand over capability without creating dependency

  Preparation hypothesis: Meeting near-term deliverables through external experts could make ICDIA’s later operation harder to sustain. Prepare an approach to transferring decision-making, procedures and relationships alongside a realistic costed operating plan.

Topics to prepare

• India’s DPI decision landscape

  Revise who owns major public platforms, where decisions are made and which institutions operate systems in production. Exercise: sketch how a proposed engagement might move among a platform owner, a ministry and a potential funder; mark any relationships or decision rights you would need to verify. The posting explicitly requires this landscape knowledge.

• Platform architecture and transferability

  Revise how architecture, local institutions and operating capacity affect whether a digital public good can be used in another setting. Exercise: explain a hypothetical platform transfer twice—once for engineers and once for institutional leaders—identifying assumptions in each explanation. The role requires credible conversations with both groups.

• Milestone-linked programme accountability

  Revise the connection between deliverable acceptance, payment, funder reporting, budget variance and formal scope changes. Exercise: trace what should happen when a milestone slips and costs rise, distinguishing a team-level mitigation from an escalation. These are explicit ICDIA accountabilities.

• Domain strategy and institutional contracting

  Revise how an advisory domain defines its offerings, clients, pricing and quality while developing funded work. Exercise: outline an illustrative opportunity from initial institutional relationship to signed scope, noting the decisions needed before proposing a price. The director owns the domain and must build a pipeline beyond ICDIA.

• Institutional capability and handover

  Revise the difference between delivering work for an institution and leaving it able to operate the work itself. Exercise: list the procedures, assets, rubrics, relationships and ongoing costs a hypothetical handover would need to address. The posting explicitly calls for an ICDIA handover and a costed post-investment plan.

• Responsible AI in public systems

  Revise how to check AI-assisted analysis for unsupported claims, sensitive information and fitness for public-sector use. Exercise: critique a hypothetical AI-drafted programme recommendation and record what needs human verification. Responsible and sophisticated AI use is mandatory; this review method is a preparation suggestion, not a stated employer process.

Skills to revise

• Sequence concurrent workstreams

  Practice drafting a short annual workplan with two parallel workstreams, milestone deliverables, dependencies, a risk register and escalation points. This mirrors the ICDIA delivery and client workplan responsibilities; the sample plan is an interview exercise, not a claim about ICDIA’s actual schedule.

• Prepare a funder update

  Using invented figures, draft a one-page milestone and narrative update showing progress, budget variance, a forecast and a proposed route for approving a timeline change. The role owns funder reporting and requires changes to be handled through an agreed process.

• Develop an opportunity to signed scope

  Practice a short institutional discovery conversation, then draft an illustrative scope with deliverables, pricing assumptions and unresolved approvals. The posting expects repeated conversion of new relationships into funded contracts and assigns this director responsibility for proposals and pricing.

• Build a costed handover plan

  Draft an illustrative transfer checklist with owners for procedures, assets, rubrics and relationships, then estimate categories of continuing operating costs. This rehearses the explicitly required ICDIA handover without assuming its actual budget or operating model.

• Lead a senior stakeholder discussion

  Rehearse a brief conversation with an institutional leader about a platform’s readiness, transferability and decision path; then restate the technical questions you would take to engineers. The role calls for senior-level dialogue, technical depth and active ecosystem relationships.

• Review AI-assisted work responsibly

  Practice annotating a hypothetical AI-assisted proposal: flag claims needing evidence, remove sensitive inputs and specify human checks before approval. This is a suggested exercise for the mandatory responsible-AI requirement and the director’s responsibility to approve domain outputs.

• Build a dual-mandate briefing

  Prepare a one-page outline of how you would balance ownership of the DPI and Digital Governance domain with delivery of ICDIA, its first substantial engagement. The page assigns this director responsibility for offerings, pricing, quality and revenue alongside ICDIA milestones.

• Prepare a milestone-delivery walkthrough

  Select a past multi-country, donor-funded programme you led, if applicable. Bring a concise timeline showing milestone-linked payments, funder reporting, budget variance, risk escalation and a formal scope or schedule change; these are stated accountabilities for ICDIA.

• Draft an ICDIA sequencing exercise

  Sketch an illustrative annual workplan for two concurrent workstreams. Show how you would handle a change in country demand or solution readiness, competing demands on three functional leads, client approval and payment-triggering deliverables. Label your assumptions rather than presenting them as ICDIA’s actual plan.

• Document an institutional origination example

  Prepare a short account of a new institutional relationship you took through to signed, funded scope, if applicable. Identify the decision-makers, procurement hurdles and your contribution; the role also requires building a pipeline beyond ICDIA.

• Map the DPI stakeholders and technical choices

  Create a discussion sheet covering India’s relevant institutions and platform owners, then use one DPI example to explain architecture, transferability and digital-public-goods trade-offs to both engineers and senior officials. Verify facts before using the sheet.

• Show how you build lasting capability

  Prepare an example of capability you built inside an institution, plus an illustrative ICDIA handover outline covering procedures, assets, rubrics, relationships and a costed post-investment operating plan. The handover is an explicit responsibility; your outline is a preparation exercise.

• Prepare a responsible-AI account

  Bring one concrete example of sophisticated AI use, explaining human review, data safeguards and how you checked outputs. Responsible and sophisticated AI use is mandatory, though the page does not prescribe a particular tool or method.

• Write targeted questions and confirm practical constraints

  Ask how ICDIA milestone decisions and approvals work, what resources support domain origination, and what a successful handover would leave with ICDIA. Be ready to discuss the stated Delhi base, rare remote exceptions, approximately 30% travel and potential institutional conflicts of interest.