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

Position: Director, AI and Digital Transformation (DPI and Digital Governance), also Team Lead, ICDIA Programme

Team: AI and Digital Transformation

Level and grade: L7 Director

Position type: Full time, permanent

Location Delhi, India. Remote only in rare exceptions.

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer

Travel: 30 percent, domestic and international

Mandate: Owns the DPI and Digital Governance domain, and holds the ICDIA engagement

About Us

APLYD helps governments, multilateral institutions, development finance institutions and foundations use AI in public systems. Most public-sector AI stops at the pilot. Our work is getting it into everyday service delivery and keeping it running once we leave.

Athena Infonomics has done this work for years. In 2026 we set it up as its own company. We cover strategy and readiness, field data and last-mile reach, design and build, evaluation and audit, and scale and production.

440+ engagements

• 240+ global clients
• 85+ specialists
• 7 countries
• 5 continents
  
  

The Role

This is one seat with two mandates. You own APLYD's DPI and Digital Governance domain across every market we work in: what it offers, who it serves, how it is priced and whether the work is any good. You also hold the ICDIA engagement, where you are APLYD's principal counterpart to the ICDIA Chief Executive, you direct three functional leads and a commissioned network, and you own delivery against the milestone schedule.

The domain has no revenue yet. The ICDIA engagement is the first substantial piece of it, and building the rest is the other half of the job.

You carry a revenue target, and part of your pay is linked to the revenue you originate. Origination credit starts from the first contract you close, the rate increases once you pass target, and there is no cap. In your first year, qualified opportunities you originated that have reached contracting are also credited, because institutional procurement often takes longer than a financial year.

Core Job Responsibilities

• Own the DPI and Digital Governance domain: what we sell, to whom, at what price, and whether it is any good. Approve every deliverable, proposal and publication in the domain.
• Own delivery on ICDIA against the milestone schedule. Two concurrent workstreams, deliverables that trigger payment, and the sequencing calls when country demand or solution readiness moves faster or slower than planned. Maintain the risk register and escalate where mitigation sits beyond the team's remit.
• Hold the ICDIA client relationship. Agree the annual workplan and get it approved, and judge when to escalate and when to absorb a problem inside the team.
• Own the funder relationship: milestone and narrative reporting, budget variance, and any change to scope or timeline handled through the agreed process rather than after the fact.
• Work the domestic ecosystem. MeitY, NISG, the Ministry of External Affairs, line ministries, diplomatic missions and the owners of individual platforms all decide and budget differently, and these relationships have to be live before you need them.
• Build the wider domain pipeline beyond ICDIA, with national and state digital programmes, multilateral digital public goods teams and the foundations that fund them, and carry opportunities to signed scope.
• Lead the ICDIA team: three functional leads and an activated network of experts and consultants. Set the standard, resolve competing claims on capacity, and build capability across the three years.
• Design and execute the ICDIA handover: standard operating procedures, assets, rubrics and relationships transferred to ICDIA, plus a costed plan for running the engine after the investment period ends.
• Manage the domain budget for research, reusable materials, conference presence and speculative proposals, and account for how it is spent.
  
  

Qualifications And Competencies

• Twelve to fifteen or more years in digital government, public policy advisory or development consulting, including several years leading programmes across more than one country.
• You have carried accountability for a donor-funded programme against milestone-linked payment, including the funder reporting that goes with it.
• You have taken a new institutional relationship to a signed, funded contract more than once.
• You know how India's digital public infrastructure landscape works: who owns what, where decisions are made, and which institutions have systems actually in production.
• You have built capability inside an institution before, and you build it rather than substituting for it.
• Enough technical depth to hold a credible conversation about platform architecture, transferability and digital public goods, with engineers on one side and institutional leaders on the other.
• You can hold a substantive conversation with the most senior official in the room without a briefing note.
• Based in Delhi, with willingness to travel 30 percent.
  
  

Also useful, though we will not screen on it

• Time inside a digital mission, a DPI-building organisation or a government technology programme.
• Prior work on South-South cooperation, bilateral partnerships or multilateral DPI initiatives.
• Familiarity with how governments access development finance, including concessional and blended instruments.
• Experience in low- and middle-income country government contexts outside India.
  
  

Additional Requirements

• This position requires successful completion of a reference check and employment verification.
• The successful candidate must not be subject to employment restrictions from a former employer, such as a non-compete, that would prevent performance of the responsibilities described.
• Candidates must declare any current or recent engagement with a government, multilateral or development finance institution that could present a conflict of interest.
  
  

APLYD's Work Culture

At APLYD, we function in an outcomes-based work environment with flexible hours and a high level of autonomy. Professional development and thought leadership are key elements of our business model: we support our team members professional growth through on-the-job training, and we encourage the cultivation of our colleagues personal brands through participation in panels, events, publications, and other thought-leadership opportunities. We embrace a transparent, open work environment with meaningful leadership pathways for those with inventive ideas and initiatives.

APLYD is an Equal Opportunities Employer

APLYD, part of the Athena Infonomics group, is an equal opportunity employer with a commitment to diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status.

AI Proficiency and Responsible Use

Proficiency in the responsible and sophisticated use of AI is a mandatory requirement for all roles, across all levels and functions at APLYD and Athena Infonomics.