Senior Associate

What will you do? The role will primarily require the Senior Associate to support the team on direct client work including research and analysis, report writing and design, advisory to organisations, and where required, organising and facilitating events like workshops, roundtable discussions, and presentations. RIA’s pipeline of projects currently covers diverse thematic areas including education, public health, environment, and philanthropy ecosystem engagement and potentially many more. The regions cover Southeast Asia and wider Asia, including China and India. Hence, the team needs to be very adept at switching between topics, learning very quickly on new topics, country systems, and models and frameworks. The Associate can look forward to a fun and fulfilling time picking up many skills, including leading research for landscape studies for different sectors across Asia, and engaging with partners and clients not only in Asia, but across the world! The role will involve direct engagement with clients that range from international foundations, funders, regional charity organisations and subject matter leaders. We embrace a learning culture, and our work scope enables us to be constantly learning about world issues, geopolitics and systems change. You will be challenged intellectually, and expected to contribute productively and have the opportunity to see your work effecting real impact. They can also expect some travel with the work. What do you need to be good at this? • Experience: Candidates should have 2-5 years of relevant experience on similar work (research, journalism, consulting, government, non-profit sector). • Candidates should demonstrate exceptional writing skills, through prior writing experience with research papers, reports, and strategy work. • Proven ability to engage in strategic issues. • Candidates must also demonstrate understanding of the impact sector, including concepts, terminology and the stakeholders in the ecosystem. Added points towards knowledge of policies relating to the sector and key trends. • Resourceful in understanding how to conduct effective primary and secondary/desktop research, and able to synthesize the information, develop insights and present the findings in a meaningful way for analysis and communication. Demonstrate keen understanding of research methodologies, especially in qualitative research. • Comfortable with data -- Proficient in Excel, creating charts, and analysing data. Prior experience in both qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis, data visualisation and presentation of insights. • Excellent at generating presentations -- candidate has to be well-versed in Microsoft Powerpoint, Canva, applying AI effectively, and other platforms for formulating useful and concise reports. • Skilled at processing multiple forms of data points, employing logical analysis and developing narratives and useful recommendations. • Great communication skills, including speaking to people from diverse backgrounds and cultural contexts, languages and countries; and presenting on report findings to clients. Other good-to-haves: • Bonus points for knowledge and experience in impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation in the impact sector. • Ability to speak/read/write other Asian languages, priority to Mandarin, but also include Bahasa Indonesia • Proficiency in facilitation of workshops and discussions.