3 Jobs That Didn't Exist A Year Ago

Image: Vidyanand Kamat

Impact Evaluation Expert
Throwing money at social problems may be a way in which companies handle their corporate social responsibility, but it is a practice that is coming under scrutiny from within. Many now look to measure the impact of the initiatives they have undertaken to see if there have been significant improvements to the causes adopted. Traditionally, this was a role outsourced to academics. But not all agree with this. Recently, the ICICI Foundation advertised a post for an impact evaluation expert to undertake scientifically designed evaluations to support the Foundation’s research and advocacy goals.

Chief Adoption Officer
Traditionally, a marketing officer drives the initiative to get customers to adopt a new technology or product. The role of a Chief Adoption Officer (CAO) is no different in function but it does differ in focus. A CAO looks only to drive adoption of products in a company. Salesforce.com is one of the first companies to have an officer, Polly Sumner, exclusively appointed at the top management level to focus on adoption alone.

UID Registrar
At least 10 crore Indians will have their unique identity number by March 2011, if UIDAI’s roadmap is realised. One of the many plans to facilitate smooth collection of data has created a new category of jobs — ‘registrar’. Large institutions and enterprises such as State Bank of India, LIC, local transport authorities and state civil supplies departments have been roped in to serve as registrars. Talks are on to enlist more systems within public sector banks and other government departments. UIDAI hopes that these systems will help provide information about the residents of that state and help collect their biometric data.

(Research: Nilofer D’Souza, N.S. Ramnath & Seema Singh)