Founders' Associate
Office of the CEO & Co-Founder
Co-drive strategy and operations alongside our CEO at a solar-irrigation social enterprise, with a real path to Chief of Staff.
- Contract: Full-time, 12 months, renewable
- Location: Fully remote, within ±6 hours of IST (Asia, Europe)
- Experience: 2 to 5 years, flexible
- Pay: Commensurate with experience, details to be shared individually with candidates
- Start: Between 1 December 2026 and 1 January 2027
- Reports to: Amit Saraogi, CEO & Co-Founder
- Apply by: 20 October 2026. Interviews run on a rolling basis, so the earlier you apply, the better.
About Oorja
On a mission to empower 1 million farmers by 2035.
Oorja is an award-winning social enterprise and Farming-as-a-Service company working where sustainable agriculture meets clean energy. Since 2016 we've used decentralised solar PV to give farmers in India affordable, solar-powered irrigation and climate-smart services, replacing diesel, raising productivity and incomes, and building climate resilience in rural communities.
A note from Amit, CEO & Co-Founder
"I care far more about how you think and operate than about your CV. I'd rather hire someone who is obviously the right person with less conventional experience than someone with the right résumé and none of the underlying traits."
The role means different things at different companies, so here is exactly what it is, including the parts that might put you off. If you read to the end and still want it, let's talk.
The role: part operator, part strategic partner to the CEO
You'll own the operational backbone of head office and work day-to-day with the CEO on the most strategic parts of the business: board management, fundraising (institutional and grant), partnerships, corporate communications and business-model thinking. You bring structure to high-stakes decisions and make sure things get done, inside the team and with external stakeholders.
1. Run how the company runs
Hold the cadence (daily stand ups, weekly leadership meeting, monthly 1:1s with function heads, the annual calendar of board meetings, budgets, grant deadlines and our Series A timeline). Own the backbone of finance and HR ops, legal and governance, and internal systems. Hunt friction and inefficiencies, and make Oorja properly AI-native by working with our Product Analyst to integrate technology in our operational systems.
2. Co-own high level decision making
Board meetings, investor and donor updates, grant submissions, partner negotiations, institutional fundraising, attendance to international conferences and summits. You're able to pitch Oorja in various settings, you're the last check before anything leaves the office, you co-write memos with the team and the CEO.
3. Own special projects end to end
Each quarter, you own the delivery of something that really matters for Oorja: our next grant, mapping and pitching institutional investors, a partnership MOU, a compensation framework, a team offsite. You build these with the CEO, from funder criteria to the technical and financial narrative.
Key responsibilities
Company operations & HR
- Head-office admin, with delegated authority for day-to-day decisions
- Performance management: KPIs, tracking, evaluations
- Vendor and procurement relationships and renewals
- Knowledge management across our Master Drive
Finance, legal & compliance
- Budget vs. actuals tracking with our finance manager
- Run the monthly close end to end with our Senior Finance Manager and make decisions based on Budget vs. actuals reports
- Coordinate legal, finance and compliance advisors
- ESOP administration: cap table, grant windows, deadlines
Board management
- Own board meetings start to finish: agendas, decks, minutes, follow-ups
- Keep the board informed of key decisions, strategic pivots and key interventions between meetings, with no surprises
- Track decisions, actions and resolutions to completion
Fundraising & investor relations
- Build the pipeline: investors, DFIs, foundations, grant funders
- Prepare rounds: projections, data rooms, due diligence
- Draft and submit grant applications and reporting
Corporate communications
- Investor updates, newsletters and stakeholder letters on the CEO's behalf
- Consistent brand and messaging across web, decks, social and press
- Media and PR coordination; internal comms
Partnerships
- Pipeline across corporates, government, financial institutions and NGOs
- Negotiate and draft MOUs and agreements
- Make sure joint commitments actually get delivered
Strategy & analysis
- Market and competitor research to inform expansion
- Pricing, utilisation and margin analysis to sharpen unit economics
- Scope new projects: resourcing, timelines, milestones
Your first 90 days: visibility, ownership, impact
- Day 30, Visibility: A friction log across the team, and a full map of every recurring obligation, each with an owner and a deadline.
- Day 60, Ownership: Leadership cadence running properly: agendas out early, decisions logged, actions chased to closure. One full monthly close done.
- Day 90, Impact: One process automated and adopted, one special project delivered, one board cycle owned, and measurable hours off the CEO's calendar.
Read this before applying: this is not a standard role
A lot of it is unglamorous. Some days the most valuable thing you do is chase four people for numbers or fix a broken invoicing process. Done well, nothing breaks and nobody notices.
Accountable for what you don't control. You own board prep, but not the department heads who owe you inputs. Your tools are foresight, persistence, and being easy to be chased by.
You won't set strategy in year one. Strategy sits with the CEO, the board and sector veterans. You'll sharpen it and make it land. Influence on the big calls comes with time.
Two very different worlds. A UK-registered social enterprise and field operations in rural Uttar Pradesh. You'll be as at home in a board deck as on a call with a field manager.
Working with the CEO. He moves fast and he'll expect you to keep up. In return you get real trust and autonomy early; this role offers the potential to step up to a CXO-equivalent role very quickly.
You'll thrive here if you…
- Fix things nobody asked you to fix. You have an ability to identify and flag broken or inefficient processes and to rebuild them in a better way.
- Ask before going heads-down. An hour understanding why beats a week confidently going the wrong way, especially in an org with complex operational processes like ours. You'll first need to observe, and then jump in the action.
- Close loops. An open item bothers you; you have an ability to project manage and are a good task master, you follow up on things without anyone needing to remind you.
- Read the small print. Grant conditions, contract clauses, budget footnotes. You pay a great deal of attention to details, because you know they matter in a resource constrained environment.
- Are properly tech-savvy. You've automated something in your own life just because it annoyed you, and you're curious what AI agents can really do.
- Chase kindly. A scientist, a field manager or an investor, the fourth time, for the same number, without them resenting it.
Must-haves
- Numbers: financial modelling, unit economics, IRR/NPV, budgets and BvA; expert in Excel/Sheets
- Writing: excellent English for grants, investor updates and reports
- Project & stakeholder management across many workstreams
- AI fluency: prompts, workflows, light automations
- Discretion & judgement with sensitive, high-stakes information
Also valued
- Decks & design: board-ready slides and one-pagers (Canva, PowerPoint/Slides)
- Public speaking to investors, officials and partners
- Research: market and competitor analysis, structured problem-solving
- Resourcefulness in a fast, lean startup
- Cross-cultural fluency across India, Europe and beyond
How to apply
Sound like you? Let's talk.
Email your CV and LinkedIn to careers@oorjasolutions.org with the subject "Founders' Associate - [Your name]", plus short answers to these three questions:
- Tell us about something broken or repetitive you fixed without being asked. What was it like before, what did you change, and was it still working six months later?
- What have you gone unreasonably deep on, something nobody paid you to learn, where you probably know more than anyone else in the room?
- Of the two halves of this role (the operating machinery and the strategic special projects), which do you want to be judged on at the end of year one, and why?
Deadline: 20 October 2026. Rolling interviews, so apply early.