Executive Assistant & Research Associate
Jain-Richter Group · Remote, based in Delhi or Gurgaon · Full time
Jain-Richter Group is a German-Indian advisory firm. We help Indian manufacturers find European technology partners, and European companies enter India. You would work directly with the Managing Partner. He reviews your work himself, and there is no layer in between.
The practical terms first, in full. Pay is ₹30,000 to ₹60,000 a month depending on experience, paid on the first Friday of each month. You would be engaged on a consultancy agreement, invoicing us monthly. The role is remote and you would be based in Delhi or Gurgaon. Monday to Saturday, starting at 06:00 IST (08:30 Singapore), 07:30 IST at the latest.
The work
Research and mandate support, about 40% of the week
- Map a supply market on request. Given a technical specification and a set of countries, find the manufacturers that match it, filtered on size, ownership and whether they already sell in India. Output: a long list with a one-line reason for each entry, narrowed to a shortlist with a written case for the top five.
- Verify what a company claims. Ownership, plant locations, certifications, test reports, existing partnerships. Assume the website is marketing until proven otherwise. Output: a short verification note per company saying what was confirmed, what was not, and where you looked.
- Read technical and regulatory documents and report what is missing from them, not only what is in them. Price lists, catalogues, tender specifications, state subsidy notifications. Output: a findings note of five to ten pages that a client can read without needing a call afterwards.
Pipeline and follow-up, about 25%
- Own the network database. Contact cadence, last contact, next touch. Output: a weekly list of what is overdue and what you have already chased.
- Chase every open thread to a yes, a no, or a dated next step. Supplier enquiries, partner replies, government authorities, introductions promised at events.
- Keep the mandate tracker honest, including the parts that are not moving. Especially those.
Executive support, about 20%
- Calendar across three time zones: India, Singapore and Central Europe.
- India travel. Output: an itinerary, plus a one-page briefing note per meeting covering who we are meeting, what they want, and what we are asking for.
- Documents and decks in the firm's brand templates.
- Inbox triage. Output: a short written handover each morning.
Outreach, about 15%
- First-contact research. Output: a named contact, their role, what they care about, and the specific reason to write to them this week.
- Draft outreach for review, then send it. Call Indian counterparties, in Hindi or English, to gather initial information about their business and to arrange a conversation with the Managing Partner. You are not expected to run the substantive discussion, and you should not try to. European contact is by email, because German competition law restricts unsolicited business calls.
What this role is not
- Not a personal assistant role. No household errands, no personal shopping, no family logistics. If that changes we will ask, and it will be a conversation, not an expectation.
- Not a closing role. You research, qualify and hand over. The Managing Partner negotiates prices and terms and signs. You will not be asked to quote, commit or represent the firm as its agent, and you may not do so. That boundary is legal, not a judgement about you.
- Not a dialler seat. No daily call quota. Outreach here is researched, written and specific, and there are weeks with very little of it.
Languages
Full fluency in English and in Hindi are both hard requirements, and neither is negotiable.
On English, to be concrete about the standard rather than vague about it: you will draft emails, briefs and follow-ups that go out over the Managing Partner's name, to German engineering companies and to Indian promoter families, and they will go out with light edits or none. If a sentence has to be rewritten before it can be sent, this role does not work for either of us.
On Hindi: you will call Indian manufacturers and family businesses to introduce us, ask a short set of questions about their business, and arrange a conversation. You need to do that confidently and courteously on the phone. You are not expected to hold the substantive discussion. Written Hindi is not needed.
German is a real advantage and is paid as one. It is not required.
We do not want a certificate for any of this. We test it in the process below.
You
- At least five years' working experience, and a bachelor's degree as a minimum, in any discipline.
- Some of those years spent supporting a founder, managing director, CEO or partner directly, or in market research, consulting or business analysis. Either route works. The second one usually means a wider brief than you have now.
- You write to the standard above.
- You are comfortable being wrong in writing and corrected fast. Both will happen.
- You can read a certification standard, a turnover figure and a subsidy notification and say what matters in three sentences.
- Excel or Sheets to a working standard. Filters, pivots, lookups. No macros needed.
- You live in Delhi or Gurgaon and can meet in person on a few days' notice when the Managing Partner is in India.
- This role is open to anyone. We do not restrict by gender, community or marital status.
Terms
- Remote. You work from home. We provide the laptop.
- Monday to Saturday. Start at 06:00 IST, 07:30 at the latest. The Managing Partner works from Singapore, so the early start is what gives us a working day together instead of a handover. It also gives your afternoons back.
- When the Managing Partner is in India, roughly 10 to 15 days a quarter, we work together from a co-working space or office in Delhi or Gurgaon and see clients in person. Arranged in advance.
- Reviewed quarterly to begin with, then every six months, against milestones set in writing in your first month.
- Confidentiality is the core of the job. Some mandates cannot be named even internally, and one current one is never named in writing at all.
Where this goes, and what we expect first
This is a new role, so there is no predecessor to point you at, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What the role becomes: the research half grows and the administrative half shrinks, and within a year the intent is that you run whole mandates end to end, from specification through shortlist, with the Managing Partner on the client-facing calls rather than on the work.
What we expect you to have delivered by the end of your first month:
- one supply-market map for a live mandate, long list and shortlist, with the written case for the top five
- the network database current, with a working contact cadence and nothing overdue that you have not flagged
- a morning handover running daily, without being asked for
- every open thread from before you joined either closed or carrying a dated next step
How to apply
No cover letter and no assignment at this stage. Send your CV to [email protected], subject line Executive Assistant - your name.
The process, in three steps.
- CV. That is the whole application.
- A single 60-minute interview. One conversation, no panel.
- A case study round for shortlisted candidates only. Two parts, about two hours, unpaid: three short emails, and a research question you answer and then rank your own findings on. It tests written English and research judgement, which are the two things this job runs on.
We reply to everyone who applies, within seven days. If you have applied for jobs in this market you know that is not standard. We are going to do it anyway.
One thing worth knowing before you apply: in the case study, and in the job, saying "I could not verify this" is a right answer. We would much rather read that than a confident guess.