Business Head - Prakruti Plus
About Prakruti Plus
Prakruti Plus is a Catalyst Management Services (CMS) initiative. Climate change falls hardest on those least equipped to absorb it. Rising heat cuts the working days and earnings of farmers, informal workers and micro-entrepreneurs; erratic rainfall undermines smallholder agriculture and food storage; heat , cold stress and unsafe water add to the disease burden of households that already spend a large share of income on health. These families have the greatest need for adaptation — heating , cooling, cold chain, safe water, clean energy and the least means to access it.
Climate-adaptation products that address these risks exist and work, but the innovators who build them rarely have the sales, distribution or after-sales capability to reach rural and peri-urban households, and those households have no trusted, curated source to buy from. Prakruti Plus sits between the two as a commercial platform — aggregating demand through community-owned franchisees (Climate Development Entrepreneurs, or CDEs), distributing validated innovator products through channel partners, and settling every transaction on commercial terms.
Role Purpose
The Business Head runs the Prakruti Plus business and owns the P&L end to end — topline, margin waterfall, cost-to-serve, and the path from grant-supported to self-sustaining. The role covers sales and distribution, franchisee and channel partner agreements, vendor selection and commercial negotiation, outreach and demand generation, business strategy, and the measurement systems (MEL) for the business. The Sales function and the Operations Lead report into this role; the SBM Commercial Manager and the Business Analyst work alongside it.
Two outcomes anchor the role alongside the commercial ones: improving the economic resilience of communities through the adoption and use of the products, and establishing the community development entrepreneurship model — building a steady, incremental income for every CDE so the network sustains itself.
What the Role Owns
P&L and Commercial Performance
- Own the full Prakruti Plus P&L — GMV, channel margins, platform costs and the operating gap — and deliver the growth the business plan sets out.
- Hold the margin structure across vendor, CDE, channel partner and tech platform shares.
- Drive the transition from grant support to commercial self-sufficiency, and report on it in reviews with CMS leadership and funders.
- Lead commercial negotiations — vendor terms, channel partner economics, platform fees, credit terms — working with the SBM Commercial Manager.
Sales, Distribution and the Franchisee Network
- Build and direct the sales engine: CDE recruitment and productivity, channel partner expansion, and the urban–rural mix as the business moves from two states to six.
- Own franchisee and channel partner agreements — commercial terms, incentives, working-capital arrangements, performance standards and exit provisions.
- Design distribution for scale: catchment planning, penetration targets and ticket sizes by geography type, and the last-mile model that serves them.
- Set sales targets, review cadence and incentive structures for the field network.
Vendor Partnerships and Negotiation
- Identify innovators working in renewable energy and climate-adaptation products, run technical due diligence on their products, and manage vendor onboarding into the network.
- Own the vendor portfolio — 2–3 vendors per major category, with an annual scorecard and a delisting mechanism.
- Lead vendor negotiations: co-investment in market creation, credit terms as volumes prove, volume-linked price step-downs, warranty and service SLAs, data and insight terms, and carbon/impact revenue shares.
Outreach, Brand and Demand Generation
- Own outreach and demand generation across the network — community activation through NGOs, SHG federations and FPOs, and direct consumer engagement.
- Run the digital and social media presence as a working sales and trust-building channel — content, campaigns and platform choices suited to rural and peri-urban audiences.
- Represent Prakruti Plus externally — with funders, ecosystem partners, incubators and media.
Strategy and MEL
- Own the business strategy: category choices, geography sequencing, channel economics and the annual operating plan.
- Own the MEL agenda for the business — impact measurement that is credible to funders and useful to operations — working with the CMS MEAL team.
Team and Working Relationships
Reporting into this role: the Sales function and the Operations Lead.
Working alongside: the SBM Commercial Manager (pricing and the overall profitability framework) and the Business Analyst (modelling, performance analysis and decision support). The role reports to the Social Business Director.
Who We're Looking For
- FMCG operational depth: 12+ years in Indian FMCG or consumer-facing businesses, with a strong operational track record.
- P&L held: has owned a P&L — a region, a category or a business unit — and been accountable for its outcome.
- High-growth experience: has scaled a business, channel or category through a steep growth phase.
- Distribution across India: has built or run general trade / rural distribution as well as urban channels; understands dealer, distributor and franchisee economics from the inside.
- Partnership builder: a record of astructuring and managing commercial partnerships — vendors, channel partners, institutional alliances.
- Commercially sharp: comfortable negotiating margins, credit terms, SLAs and contracts.
- Social media savvy: uses digital and social channels as business tools and can direct a demand-generation presence.
- Mission fit: motivated by building a commercially disciplined business that puts income in the hands of community entrepreneurs and climate-adaptation products in rural homes.
Location and Travel
Based in Bengaluru. This is a field-heavy leadership role with extensive travel across operating states (Tamil Nadu and Karnataka initially, expanding to six states) to channel partners, vendor sites and community organisations.