Vice President, The AI Access Initiative

The AI Access Initiative (2AI) is at an inflection point in artificial intelligence, presenting both tremendous potential opportunity and risk for people in developing countries. AI capabilities are improving rapidly, while development systems often move slowly. Much of the technology needed for positive impact exists today, but few organizations bridge research, deployment, and scaled implementation. 2AI, incubated at Evidence Action, scales AI-enabled ‘big bets’ to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of people in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We operate at the intersection of global development actors, top AI labs, and leading researchers to drive meaningful access to AI’s benefits for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty globally. We create open-sourced playbooks, toolkits, and insights that define how to design and launch tractable and impactful AI-enabled programs. Our initial focus is on scaling two programs: AI in Agriculture and AI in Health.

We are led by former Evidence Action CEO Kanika Bahl, a founding member of Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, and advised by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer; Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic; and Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs for Alphabet and Google. This work builds on Evidence Action’s track record of reaching 530M+ people with cost-effective, evidence-based programs across 9 countries in Africa and Asia, with a focus on last-mile delivery.

About the role

2AI is hiring two roles at this level: Vice President, Agriculture and Vice President, Health, each responsible for programmatic strategy and execution across their respective portfolio. While incubated at Evidence Action, 2AI plans to spin out in Q4 2026.

Agriculture: You will set programmatic strategy and drive rapid expansion for our Agriculture portfolio, collaborating with regional leaders, including our India Country Director. The goal is to reach 100M+ farmers with AI-enabled weather forecasts, expand forecast R&D, and build public and private sector delivery channels (e.g., WhatsApp, telcos) to deliver LLM-generated voice and image content that maximizes behavior change.

Health: You will set programmatic strategy and drive learning, innovation, and scale in our Health portfolio. The initial goal is to scale AI-enabled clinical decision support to 20M+ people via telemedicine platforms, improving diagnosis and health outcomes at a national level. We are also exploring novel interventions for low-resource settings, including direct-to-consumer (DTC) health interventions.

In either role, you will be a key face of 2AI to funders and partners and a core member of the leadership team, shaping the organization’s future direction. These are builder roles: recruiting teams, designing infrastructure, and expanding into new geographies and intervention areas. The cost of moving slowly is measured in lives and livelihoods—hundreds of millions of people could benefit from AI-powered health and agricultural tools if the field acts with urgency and rigor.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a core member of the executive leadership team, shaping organizational strategy, culture, and priorities.
• Hire and mentor a high-performing leadership team and staff, fostering a mission-driven culture focused on scale, thoughtfulness, and urgency.
• Ensure every program has a strong learning architecture: clear hypotheses, rigorous measurement, rapid iteration cycles, and honest reporting. Use cost-effectiveness evidence to guide resource allocation.
• Develop and steward 2AI’s open-sourced playbooks and insights—building durable field knowledge, not just running programs.
• Set and achieve ambitious program strategies for 2AI’s Agriculture or Health portfolios—vision, priorities, delivery models, and expansion roadmap—in collaboration with the CEO and regional leads.
• Design and run fast, rigorous pilots with strong measurement and feedback loops, iterating on what isn’t working and scaling what deserves to grow.
• Stay at the frontier of AI-enabled solutions for LMICs, tracking, testing, and integrating emerging tools and approaches.
• Partner with technical and research teams to ensure AI-powered approaches are grounded in rigorous evidence, adapted to local realities, and designed for sustainable delivery.
• Serve as 2AI’s programmatic bridge among AI labs, global development actors, researchers, frontline implementers, and regional governments.
• Shape technical offerings in partnership with leading AI labs, adapting tools for underrepresented languages, low-bandwidth environments, and last-mile contexts.
• Support regional leaders in navigating government relationships, adoption pathways, and policy enablement.
• Lead fundraising efforts, contributing to compelling narratives for major funders, developing grants, and making the case for ambitious investment.
• Represent 2AI at senior levels in public and private forums, building its profile as the leading ecosystem coordinator for AI deployment in LMICs.

Requirements

The ideal candidate has built programs, teams, or organizations in complex, resource-constrained environments and is excited to do so again at the frontier of AI in development. This role is for someone motivated by the prospect of programs reaching hundreds of millions of people, who understands the urgency of shaping AI’s impact in the developing world.

• 15+ years of experience building and leading programs in international development or adjacent fields, with a track record of scaling complex initiatives to national or regional scale in LMICs.
• Experience as a successful builder: launching new programs and organizational functions in 3-5 countries, scaling programs nationwide, recruiting and developing top talent, and cultivating a culture of rigor and urgency.
• Experience with AI-enabled solutions in your portfolio area (e.g., AI clinical decision support, digital health, or telemedicine for Health; AI in agriculture, digital agriculture, or agtech for Agriculture).
• Fundraising or major donor engagement experience, including raising $5M+ annually.
• Familiarity with how African and/or Asian governments operate, with experience supporting regional leaders in navigating institutional processes.
• Ability to bridge technical and programmatic worlds in your portfolio area or related fields, translating between AI labs, researchers, delivery organizations, and government counterparts.
• Strong AI fluency: working knowledge of frontier AI tools and LLMs, and their practical application in low-resource settings. Active curiosity about frontier developments.
• Existing relationships with major global health or agriculture funders (e.g., bilateral donors, large foundations, tech sector philanthropists) is a plus.

Location

This role is flexible and fully remote within the United States. Evidence Action is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of a U.S. employment visa at this time. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the U.S.

Benefits

The pay range for this U.S.-based role is $210,000 - $250,000 per year, commensurate with role scope, program budgets, internal equity, and candidate qualifications. Benefits include:

• International health care, HSA/FSA options, life insurance, and disability coverage.
• Retirement plans with a matching component.
• Generous and flexible leave options.
• Reimbursement-based employee perks.

This role will initially be housed at Evidence Action, with plans to transfer to the AI Access Initiative upon its spin-out as a new entity later this year. Benefits and policies may change at that time.