Oorja Development Solutions Limited
Strategic Partnerships & Research Fellow
About the Organization
Oorja is an award-winning social enterprise operating in Uttar Pradesh, India. We are on a mission to empower 1 million farmers globally by 2035 with the agricultural solutions they need to sustainably increase their income and quality of life.
We are a Farming-as-a-Service company working at the intersection of sustainable agriculture and clean energy. Founded in 2016, Oorja aims to address the climate crisis by promoting clean solar energy in India through inclusive and affordable solar-powered irrigation solutions. Oorja leverages decentralised solar PV infrastructure to provide clean energy and climate-smart solutions that meet the needs of farmers and farming based institutions. Our farmer-centric business models enable transition from fossil fuels to clean energy thereby reducing carbon footprint, boosting productivity, increasing income, long term saving and enhancing climate resilience of communities, contributing to the SDGs.
Fellowship Description:
You will simultaneously support our Research & Consultancy pipeline and our B2B Institutional Sales vertical; generating leads, supporting leaders in converting prospects, building thought leadership and accelerating revenue. This is a high-ownership role suited to someone who is equally comfortable doing deep desk research and sending polished cold outreach.
The intern will report to the Research & Partnerships Lead and work closely with the Sales and Strategy teams across both business lines.
Research & Consultancy
Build and qualify a targeted pipeline
Support proposal & collateral development
Develop case studies and strategy inputs
Drive thought leadership & conference presence
B2B Institutional Sales
AI-driven pipeline building (e.g. DaanVeda)
Cold email outreach campaigns
Warm introduction mapping
Meeting scheduling & CRM management
Key Responsibilities:
A. Research & Consultancy
Pipeline Development
Build and continuously maintain a qualified pipeline of potential clients including research institutions, think tanks, impact investors, donors, NGOs, FPOs, agribusinesses, and government agencies to drive Oorja’s B2B Institutional Sales vertical.
Conduct structured desk research to identify, qualify, and prioritise prospects aligned with Oorja's research and consultancy service offering, including a high level market research and competitors’ analysis.
Develop and maintain a prospect scoring framework to rank opportunities by an agreed upon set of criteria including strategic fit, conversion likelihood, and revenue potential (lead qualification).
Meeting Scheduling & Engagement Support
Support the team in scheduling discovery calls, follow-up meetings, and stakeholder presentations.
Draft and manage outreach communications, follow-up email sequences, and meeting prep briefs.
Maintain outreach logs and ensure no warm lead falls through the cracks (CRM management).
Ensure every outreach is promptly followed up upon as per the agreed SOP.
Proposal, Collateral & Marketing Material Development
Support the drafting and formatting of high-quality proposals, concept notes, and pitch decks for prospective clients.
Where relevant, develop and update marketing collaterals to strengthen the consultancy's brand positioning.
Strategy Development & Market Mapping
Support the development of go-to-market strategy for the Research & Consultancy vertical by identifying the most viable client archetypes and revenue opportunities.
Research and document case studies from peer organisations that have successfully launched or scaled a similar consultancy practice, distilling learnings applicable to Oorja.
Conduct competitive landscaping to benchmark Oorja's positioning, pricing, and service offerings.
Thought Leadership & Conference Strategy
Update and maintain a live tracker of relevant conferences, summits, panels, and awards across clean energy, agri-tech, development finance, and climate resilience.
Prioritise events by relevance, audience composition, and potential for indirect business development (windfalls, referrals, partnerships).
Support the preparation of abstracts, speaker proposals, and presentation materials for selected events.
Identify speaking, content and publication opportunities (op-eds, research briefs, blog series, interviews, podcasts, panels, etc.) to increase Oorja's thought leadership footprint online and in key networks.
B. B2B Institutional Sales
AI-Driven Pipeline Development
Use platforms such as DaanVeda or similar tools (including AI or platform recommendations from the team) to identify and build targeted prospect lists for Oorja's institutional sales function.
Learn and leverage AI-enabled enrichment workflows to qualify contacts by role seniority, organisation type, funding stage, and alignment to Oorja's offering.
Maintain a clean, de-duplicated CRM database with accurate contact data, tags, and pipeline stages.
Cold Email Outreach
Research and write personalised, high-quality cold email sequences targeting decision-makers in institutions, foundations, and corporates.
A/B test subject lines, messaging angles, and call-to-action formats to continuously optimise open and reply rates.
Track outreach metrics (open rate, reply rate, conversion to call) and report weekly insights to the sales lead.
Warm Introduction & Referral Mapping
Map existing network connections (Oorja’s leadership team, board, advisors, alumni, partners) to identify warm paths to high-conversion prospects.
Draft concise, compelling ask messages for warm introductions to be sent by senior Oorja stakeholders.
Build and maintain a referral tracker to systematically activate Oorja's first and second-degree network.
Meeting Scheduling & Conversion Support
Own the process of converting qualified leads into scheduled meetings from initial outreach to confirmed calendar invite.
Prepare pre-meeting dossiers: organisation background, stakeholder profiles and recommended talking points.
Support the sales team during and post-meeting: follow-up emails, action item tracking, and next-step scheduling.
Qualifications:
Currently pursuing or recently completed a degree in Development Studies, Economics, Business, Public Policy, Marketing & Communications or related
Excellent written English: capable of drafting clean, professional emails, proposals, and marketing content without heavy editing.
Strong research, writing, and analytical skills with attention to detail: able to synthesise information from multiple sources into actionable outputs.
High attention to detail, especially in managing trackers, CRM data, and formatted documents.
Comfortable working with Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides).
Interest in agriculture, clean energy, climate mitigation, and South & Southeast Asia.
Time Commitment: 30 hours / week