Chief Operating Officer — Transaction-Banking Franchise

The mandate

A listed transaction-banking franchise has expanded products, client exceptions and delivery partners faster than its governance. Client onboarding, payments, liquidity, documentation and service are managed through separate forums; relationship teams chase unresolved cases; and senior operations leaders arbitrate issues that should have clear journey ownership. The board has created one COO seat to make the system coherent.

The Chief Operating Officer will oversee operations supporting approximately ₹86,350 crore in loans and deposits and lead about 1,050 employees and material partners. The perimeter covers onboarding, account and facility servicing, transaction operations, documentation, implementation, client service, complaints, operational controls, resilience and change. Product, risk and technology remain accountable peers; the COO owns complete delivery.

The first task is to define work and decision rights across end-to-end journeys. A client should not need internal knowledge to move a mandate, payment or service request through the bank. Common case ownership, evidence, service levels and escalation must replace local workarounds. Exceptions need commercial or regulatory justification, an owner and expiry.

Capacity should follow observable demand, complexity and cut-off risk. Local throughput can look healthy while work waits between teams or returns for correction. The COO will measure elapsed service, rework, repeat contact, manual intervention and complete cost. Specialist capacity must flex safely during client implementations, peak payments and regulatory deadlines.

Partners require the same operating standard. Contracts should cover quality, data, resilience, customer responsibility and exit, while reporting shows the complete client outcome rather than vendor activity. Supplier concentration and manual fallback should be exercised under stressed volume.

Succession adds a leadership obligation. The appointee must transfer relationships and tacit knowledge, clarify permanent roles and avoid preserving overlapping authority through caution. The future team should combine product literacy, operational discipline and credible successors.

Technology change will be sequenced around operating readiness. Configuration, entitlements, reconciliation, client testing and rollback must clear explicit gates. Benefits count only when legacy work, systems or partner capacity genuinely end.

Operational data should support daily decisions, not merely monthly review. The COO will assign owners to demand, backlog, quality and exception measures and remove competing reports. Client feedback and complaint evidence will be joined to service data so apparently efficient work cannot conceal poor outcomes.

Why this seat is open

This planned new role belongs to the next operating model and is not an incumbent replacement. Its four-to-six-month appointment window precedes the next capital and talent cycle. Existing leaders retain their accountabilities until activation, with confidential organisation choices.

What you will own

• Establish journey ownership, common work, service levels and escalation.
• Steward operations across the ₹86,350 crore loan and deposit perimeter.
• Simplify client and product exceptions with commercial and control evidence.
• Align capacity across sites, teams, cut-offs and implementation peaks.
• Govern partners through quality, resilience, data and exit standards.
• Protect operations through succession and technology change.
• Lead 1,050 employees and partners with clear decision rights.
• Give the board one view of service, cost, customer, risk and people.

The first 12 months

In the first 90 days, baseline journeys, demand, service, rework, incidents, cost and dependencies. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to complexity, including clients, relationship teams, frontline colleagues, technology, risk and partners. Trace representative cases, assess leaders, stabilise immediate risks and agree board gates for organisation and investment.

Months four to nine should assign journey owners, remove duplicate forums and begin controlled capacity balancing. Fill leadership gaps, reset material partner arrangements and simplify priority exceptions. The first value should appear through faster completion, lower repeats, released capacity, improved reliability or a better client outcome.

By year end, delivery reliability, productivity and end-to-end accountability should show repeatable progress. Delivery must remain within 10% of the approved case and forecasts should reconcile volumes, cash, customer and people assumptions for three quarters. Priority risks require independently evidenced closure; no severe escalation may remain unresolved beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Complete journey time, service reliability and first-time resolution.
• Failure demand, manual work, overtime and fully loaded unit cost.
• Client implementation and payment performance at critical cut-offs.
• Partner resilience, quality and practical exit readiness.
• Retention above 90% for pivotal talent and immediate succession for 70% of direct reports.
• Quantified improvement in operational complexity with clean data ownership.

The person

You are a COO, Transaction Operations President or Service Executive with 18–22 years in regulated banking. You have carried end-to-end delivery across products, sites, channels or markets and led through leadership transition.

Your accountable P&L, book, budget or portfolio has been at least ₹50,100 crore, and you have led 1,000 or more people. You can evidence an operating-model reset whose service and cost outcomes held for two reporting periods.

You understand transaction cut-offs, client implementation, operational controls and partner dependencies. You can remove successful leaders’ workarounds without losing their followership and distinguish productivity from vacancy-based savings.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹3.2–4.6 crore plus performance variable and LTI. This permanent Mumbai appointment uses a hybrid pattern and permits a notice period of up to six months.

Confidentiality

The bank, succession and operating design will be disclosed only under mutual confidentiality. Composite facts prevent identification.