Chief Operating Officer — Cybersecurity Portfolio

The mandate

A listed cybersecurity portfolio has added products, delivery locations and specialist teams until its operating complexity surpassed the governance built to control it. Service ownership is divided across product, engineering, customer operations and regional leaders.

The Chief Operating Officer will carry operating stewardship across approximately ₹2,300 crore in annual recurring revenue and lead roughly 1,000 employees and material partners. Coverage includes service delivery, customer operations, implementation, capacity, quality, productivity, resilience, suppliers, operating governance and talent. The COO is answerable to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor.

The board is not seeking another coordination layer. It expects the COO to define end-to-end accountabilities from customer commitment through deployment, protection, incident response, recovery and renewal. Each value stream needs one owner, a small set of service outcomes and the authority to resolve cross-functional trade-offs. Governance should shorten the distance between signal and decision.

Reliability requires a factual starting point. Availability averages can conceal recurring failure in critical journeys, while incident counts may ignore customer severity. The COO will connect service objectives, detection, recovery, backlog, change failure and customer consequence. Known error, problem management and engineering investment should be visible in the same operating conversation as commercial commitments.

Cybersecurity delivery adds obligations beyond ordinary software operations. Customers expect rapid response, trustworthy intelligence, controlled access and evidence that sensitive actions are supervised. The role must align security operations, product engineering and customer teams without weakening technical independence. Emergency authority, communication and post-incident learning should be rehearsed before a consequential event.

Productivity will be treated as flow, not a blunt headcount target. Demand, capacity, queue time, rework, automation and skill should show where work stalls. The COO will standardise repeatable processes where variation adds no customer value, but protect specialised response where threat, regulation or customer architecture makes uniformity unsafe.

Customer commitments need operational consent. Sales exceptions, bespoke integrations and accelerated implementations can produce revenue while accumulating unpriced complexity. A contract-to-capacity gate should expose delivery effort, reliability consequence, security risk and lifetime economics before signature. Existing commitments that cannot be served sustainably must be renegotiated or deliberately funded.

The operating cadence will join service, customer, financial, people and risk facts. Teams should not spend review meetings reconciling definitions. Named data owners, explicit thresholds and pre-agreed actions will allow meetings to focus on decisions. Severe exceptions should travel directly to the accountable executive rather than wait for a monthly pack.

Leadership structure will be tested against the new value streams. The COO must decide which roles carry line accountability, which provide expert standards and which have become unnecessary interfaces. Ready successors, site leadership and specialist retention are crucial because reliability cannot depend on a few individuals who understand historic workarounds.

Why this seat is open

This requirement arose outside the approved hiring calendar when the reliability gap made split operating ownership untenable. Interim arrangements protect essential services, but the board intends to progress from qualified shortlist to offer within four to six weeks. The process remains confidential and evidence led.

What you will own

• Establish end-to-end ownership across the cybersecurity customer lifecycle.
• Steward operations supporting approximately ₹2,300 crore of annual recurring revenue.
• Close the platform reliability gap through explicit service and investment choices.
• Lead about 1,000 employees and partners across sites and disciplines.
• Link customer commitments to capacity, security exposure and lifetime economics.
• Improve productivity through flow, automation and reduced rework.
• Install a decision-oriented operating cadence with trustworthy data.
• Build resilient leadership coverage for critical services and locations.

The first 12 months

In the first 90 days, validate service and capacity baselines, assess the senior team and meet the 30 stakeholders most affected by the governance seams. Trace several customer journeys end to end, stabilise acute reliability threats and agree board-owned decision gates for investment, exceptions and accountability changes.

Months four to nine should implement the value-stream model, fill critical leadership gaps and remove redundant forums. Priority reliability work, contract-to-capacity controls and productivity interventions should release measurable customer value or capacity. Suppliers and site leaders need objectives aligned to the same service outcomes.

At twelve months, delivery reliability, productivity and end-to-end accountability should be repeatable rather than dependent on intervention. The value case must finish within 10% of approval, while three successive outlooks reconcile service, cash, customer and workforce assumptions. Any severe operational escalation requires resolution inside a 30-day boundary.

What the board will measure

• Customer-critical journeys with one empowered end-to-end owner.
• Reliability, detection, recovery and change performance by service consequence.
• Capacity released through lower queue time, automation and reduced rework.
• Commercial exceptions assessed before commitment and tracked through delivery.
• Retention of 90% or more of pivotal talent and immediate cover for 70% of direct reports.
• Material incidents communicated promptly with verified corrective learning.

The person

You are a COO, EVP Operations or Business Operations President with 18–22 years in software, cloud, cybersecurity, digital platforms, IT services or technology-enabled business services. You have redesigned governance across multiple sites, channels or markets and can quantify service, cost and customer outcomes.

At least ₹1,350 crore of P&L, book, budget or portfolio accountability and leadership of 1,000 people are required. Your evidence must isolate decisions you personally made and show results lasting beyond the first reporting period.

You are technically credible enough to question reliability and security assumptions without displacing accountable experts. The successful candidate will have simplified a complex operating model, challenged commercially attractive exceptions and retained followership through changes to roles and authority.

Compensation and terms

Compensation comprises ₹3.2–4.6 crore fixed, performance variable and LTI. The permanent role is hybrid in Bengaluru, where relocation is expected; a structured weekly commute may be considered during the initial quarter. Notice up to six months can be managed.

Confidentiality

The listed group, interim owners, customers and reliability evidence are protected. Details capable of identifying the enterprise will follow a mutual fit discussion and signed confidentiality undertaking; all published facts are rounded and combined.