Company: Confidential Series C agritech and supply-chain platform
Board base: Pune, Maharashtra, with operating reviews in Nashik and producing regions
Sector: Fresh-produce aggregation, B2B distribution and embedded services
Appointment: Independent Director, Non-Executive
Intended committees: Audit & Risk Committee; Farmer and Customer Trust Committee
Time commitment: 24–30 days annually
Application deadline: 20 October 2026
Expected appointment: January 2027
Company context
The platform sources fruit and vegetables through farmer groups, collection points and local aggregators, then grades, packs and supplies retailers, food-service customers and processors. Technology supports demand planning, price discovery, quality, routing, settlement and selected partner-led credit or input services. The Series C plan expands city distribution and owned or dedicated packhouse capacity.
Market hint: A western India origin, farm-gate collection network, B2B fresh-produce customers and technology-led price/quality workflows may resemble several growth-stage agritech companies. Investors, crops and customer names are withheld.
Board mandate
The director will ensure that scale improves rather than obscures farmer settlement, produce quality, shrinkage, customer economics and cash conversion.
Strategic priorities
- Reconcile procurement weight, grade, price, deductions, rejection, resale and farmer payment at lot level.
- Establish quality standards and dispute processes for perishable produce where measurement changes across farm, packhouse, transit and customer receipt.
- Track shrinkage, spoilage, downgrade, returns, temperature excursion and claim by crop, source, route, facility and customer.
- Review farmer and aggregator incentives, advances, exclusivity, data use and payment timing for fairness and economic durability.
- Separate gross merchandise value from owned-inventory revenue and disclose principal-versus-agent economics consistently.
- Govern partner-led credit and input products through consent, suitability, default, collection conduct and clear regulated-entity identity.
- Stage-gate packhouses, cold rooms and city expansion through throughput, crop density, customer commitments, utilisation, yield and cash payback.
- Test customer concentration, price renegotiation, returns, credit and private-label obligations within account profitability.
- Protect food safety, pesticide-residue, traceability, hygiene, packaging and recall readiness across fragmented supply.
- Build data and model governance for demand forecasting, grading, price recommendations and credit signals.
Decisions expected at Board level
- Whether a city should expand when revenue grows but shrinkage and receivables destroy contribution.
- Whether a large retailer contract transfers disproportionate rejection and price risk to farmers or the platform.
- Whether a credit product genuinely helps farmers or monetises data without adequate suitability controls.
- Whether owned infrastructure is strategic or an expensive substitute for operating discipline.
- Whether reported farmer benefit and waste-reduction claims are independently supportable.
Candidate profile
Essential: Former agriculture, food supply-chain, retail, logistics, marketplace or rural-finance CEO/COO/CFO, investor or Board director; perishable operations, farmer economics, working capital and scale-up governance.
Preferred: food safety, packhouses/cold chain, agronomy, embedded finance, B2B customer contracts, Series C or pre-IPO Boards.
Eligibility and conflicts
Active IICA Databank inclusion with test passed or valid exemption is mandatory for the search. Candidates must disclose relationships with retailers, processors, aggregators, farmer organisations, lenders, input companies, logistics vendors, investors, auditors and competitors.
First-year outcomes
- Lot-level farmer-to-customer economic and quality traceability.
- Crop, route, facility and customer contribution used in expansion decisions.
- Food-safety and recall controls across fragmented sourcing.
- Embedded-finance governance protecting consent and customer suitability.
- Capital allocation linked to throughput, yield and cash rather than GMV.