Chief Information Officer — Low-Carbon Platform

The mandate

A listed Indian low-carbon platform depends on a high-cost technology estate assembled across acquisitions, projects and ventures. Core finance, project, asset, customer and data services use brittle integrations and expensive support, yet the investment committee has withheld wholesale renewal until business and transition value are clear. The board needs a CIO who can separate urgent resilience from optional modernisation and stage investment around the platform's portfolio choices.

The perimeter supports approximately ₹41,750 crore in operated assets and development portfolio and 650 employees and material partners. Accountability includes technology strategy, enterprise architecture, applications, infrastructure, cyber partnership, service management, data-platform interfaces, delivery, vendors, cost and talent. Business executives own process and product outcomes. The CIO owns estate integrity, investment choices and whether technology can expand, separate or close with portfolio positions.

The platform spans operating renewables, development, emerging technologies and customer propositions. These businesses need different availability, speed and controls. A single target architecture may be useful, but one migration calendar would ignore operating and capital stages.

The transition-investment decision is therefore also a technology decision. Future ventures need reusable capability, while paused or divested positions need safe containment and exit.

Why this seat is open

The need arose outside the approved hiring plan when the investment committee paused renewal. This urgent and unplanned role has no predecessor and is targeted through a four-to-six-week process. Interim technology leaders protect services but cannot recommend the capital and estate pathway.

What you will own

• Establish a fact-based cost, risk and dependency baseline.
• Decide renew, converge, contain, retire and separate pathways.
• Stage technology capital against portfolio evidence and gates.
• Protect resilience, cyber, data and records during change.
• Reset vendors, product ownership and exit rights.
• Develop architecture, service and delivery successors.

The estate baseline will include run cost, change cost, incidents, technical debt, integrations, data, licences, vendors and business dependency. Allocations will show which ventures and assets consume shared capability. The CIO will expose apparent savings created by unfunded support or deferred renewal and identify services whose value remains enterprise-wide.

Architecture decisions will use bounded domains and stage. Operating assets may require stable work, maintenance and market interfaces; development needs project and partner collaboration; emerging ventures need controlled experimentation. Common identity, finance, data and integration may provide a spine, while business-specific components retain explicit lifecycle ownership.

Investment cases will show counterfactual and option value. Renewal may reduce outage or vendor risk, enable portfolio reuse or lower separation cost. Each release will have evidence, adoption, retirement and rollback. Large platform commitments will be broken into gates where feasible, preventing future-strategy optimism from funding irreversible technology too early.

Resilience and cyber will be designed throughout. Privileged access, remote assets, partner connections, recovery, ransomware and data loss require tested scenarios. Contained legacy services need compensating controls and expiry. A platform cannot remain indefinitely on a risk exception because its business future is undecided.

Vendor strategy will address concentration, skills, service, data ownership, export and transition. Contracts will include usable exit, not merely termination clauses. Internal product or service owners will carry cost, adoption and control. Customisation that preserves obsolete processes will require explicit executive approval.

Portfolio separation or closure will have technology playbooks covering data, records, licences, infrastructure, interfaces, people and transitional services. The CIO will price these dependencies into business decisions before a buyer, partner or closure date fixes the outcome.

The first 12 months

Within 75 days, the CIO will baseline the 20 highest-cost or highest-risk components, assess leadership and identify critical resilience gaps. The investment committee will receive renew, converge, contain, retire and separate decisions.

By month eight, three renewal releases should pass staged gates, two duplicate services should enter retirement and the first priority venture should carry a technology separation or scale pathway. Key vendors will operate outcome and exit scorecards.

At year-end, technology run cost should fall 12%, high-severity service incidents improve 25% and critical availability exceed 99.9%. Ninety per cent of renewal capital should remain behind approved evidence gates, with tested recovery for priority services and ready cover for 70% of pivotal technology roles.

What the board will measure

• Technology capital aligned with portfolio evidence and stage.
• Lower cost and brittleness without destabilising live assets.
• Clear containment, retirement and separation pathways.
• Vendor exit and internal ownership strengthened.
• Credible technology leadership and succession.

The person

You are a CIO, enterprise technology executive or technology-portfolio leader with 18–22 years of experience. You have carried accountable scope above ₹24,200 crore and led at least 500 people. Your record includes acquisitions, assets, ventures and major estate renewal in energy or another capital-intensive enterprise.

The board will test a renewal you staged rather than approved wholesale, a legacy service you contained with an expiry and a separation where technology dependency changed value. You must connect architecture with capital and portfolio choices. Infrastructure-only leadership without business investment authority will not qualify.

This onsite New Delhi role requires regular travel to assets, ventures, partners, vendors and board forums.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹3.2–4.6 crore plus performance variable and LTI. Measures include staged capital, service, cost, resilience, separability, vendors and succession. Long-term awards follow standard vesting and final scope.

Confidentiality

The enterprise, assets, ventures, systems, vendors and investment options remain confidential. Further detail follows qualification and mutual confidentiality. Rounded values and blended context protect identity.