How to apply for Chief People Officer, The AI Access Initiative

About Evidence Action

Evidence Action scales cost-effective, evidence-based programs that reduce poverty for millions of people across Africa and Asia. The AI Access Initiative (2AI) is incubated at Evidence Action and focuses on scaling AI-enabled 'big bets' to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of people in low- and middle-income countries. It is led by former Evidence Action CEO Kanika Bahl and advised by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Alphabet's Kent Walker.

About the role

As Chief People Officer, you will build the people function for a rapidly scaling organization that sits at the intersection of global development, top AI labs, and leading researchers. You will be responsible for hiring, retaining, and developing a distributed team across Africa, Asia, and the US while the portfolio expands from two programs (AI in Agriculture and AI in Health) to many more. This role directly shapes whether 2AI can grow fast enough to close the gap between AI capabilities and development systems.

A typical day

A typical day might involve meeting with program leads in Africa and Asia about hiring needs, reviewing compensation benchmarks for technical roles, and working with Evidence Action's existing people team on compliance for new country expansions. You would also spend time with Kanika Bahl and external advisors on how to position 2AI as an employer for candidates who might otherwise go to an AI lab or a larger NGO. Because the organization is incubating, much of the work is creating processes that do not yet exist.

Who Evidence Action is looking for

• Experience building people operations from scratch in a high-growth, distributed organization, ideally across multiple countries and time zones.
• Track record hiring senior technical and research talent, including competing with top AI labs and global development organizations for the same candidates.
• Familiarity with employment law, compliance, and benefits administration in multiple African and Asian countries, or demonstrated ability to build that infrastructure quickly.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity: the organization is incubating, the portfolio is expanding, and processes do not yet exist.

Tips for this application

• Connect your people strategy experience directly to the two named programs (AI in Agriculture and AI in Health) and the goal of reaching hundreds of millions of people in LMICs.
• Name specific countries or regions in Africa and Asia where you have hired or built teams, since the role is remote-US but the organization operates across those regions.
• Reference the advisors (Kanika Bahl, Michael Kremer, Dario Amodei, Kent Walker) to show you understand the level of external scrutiny and partnership this role will support.
• Explain how you would build a people function that can scale from two programs to a substantially larger portfolio without adding bureaucratic drag.
• Address the remote-US location directly: describe how you have led distributed teams and what systems you use to keep culture and performance consistent across geographies.

What to cover in your cover letter

The cover letter should emphasize: (1) your experience building people infrastructure in a fast-scaling, multi-country organization; (2) how you have recruited talent in competition with top AI labs or global development employers; (3) your understanding of employment compliance across Africa and Asia; and (4) why the specific timing of AI's impact on LMICs motivates you to join now rather than later.

Research before applying

• Read Evidence Action's published program evaluations and cost-effectiveness data to understand the evidence standard the organization applies to its work.
• Research The AI Access Initiative's two current programs, AI in Agriculture and AI in Health, including any public materials about how they operate in Africa and Asia.
• Look into Kanika Bahl's role on Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust and what that signals about the organization's approach to AI safety and governance.
• Review public information about Michael Kremer's work on development economics and Dario Amodei's writings on AI and economic growth to understand the intellectual framing of 2AI.

Likely interview topics

Based on the job description, expect questions about:

• How would you design a hiring process to compete with Anthropic, Google, and other top AI labs for technical talent while offering remote work and a development-focused mission?
• What people systems would you put in place in the first 90 days to support scaling from two programs to a much larger portfolio?
• How do you handle employment classification and benefits across multiple African and Asian countries when the organization is legally based in the US?
• Describe a time you built a people function from scratch. What did you prioritize first and what did you deliberately delay?
• How would you measure the success of the people function in an organization whose impact is measured in millions of people reached, not revenue?

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating this as a standard HR leadership role: the job is about building a people function for a new organization, not managing an existing one.
• Ignoring the global development context: candidates who focus only on tech hiring without addressing LMIC employment realities will miss the core challenge.
• Overpromising on culture or values without concrete examples of how you have built distributed teams across Africa and Asia in practice.