EVP – Strategy and Portfolio — Digital Lending Portfolio

The mandate

A digital-lending portfolio must now decide what kind of business it will become. Several products were built around low-cost acquisition, rapid partner onboarding and abundant funding. Analysis has revealed that complaints, repeat borrowing, partner incentives and servicing effort vary sharply beneath similar headline yields. The next planning cycle cannot fund every proposition at its present ambition. A new EVP for Strategy and Portfolio will turn these findings into explicit choices about markets, products and capabilities.

The remit spans approximately ₹4,900 crore of loans, committed investment and strategic exposure, plus a 300-person strategy, analytics, portfolio-delivery and partner-management perimeter. It covers direct digital credit, embedded propositions and selected co-lending or distribution partnerships. The executive will not own day-to-day underwriting or compliance; those accountabilities remain with business and control leaders. This role owns the integrated portfolio argument on which capital and senior attention are allocated.

The current plan treats growth opportunities as additive. In reality, engineering capacity, risk-model attention, funding headroom and management bandwidth are common constraints. A product with attractive booked yield may be inferior after acquisition incentives, early collections, repeat-contact cost and remediation exposure. Conversely, a slower-growing proposition may create valuable customer relationships or distribution access. The EVP must make those trade-offs comparable without pretending that all strategic value can be reduced to one spreadsheet cell.

The board expects a strategist who is willing to recommend exit, partnership or pause when evidence warrants it, and who can then organise delivery behind the answer. A presentation-led corporate strategy profile without implementation ownership will not meet the need.

Why this seat is open

This is planned hiring for a newly created role. Product teams previously built their own strategic cases, while group strategy concentrated on transactions and annual planning. Conduct remediation demonstrated that no executive held a whole-portfolio view of customer outcomes, capital, technology dependencies and partner risk. The board approved the position before the next investment round so the successful candidate can shape—not simply administer—the resulting allocation decisions.

What you will own

• Construct a common fact base for each proposition, incorporating customer need, acquisition quality, repeat use, lifetime economics, loss volatility, service demand, funding and conduct indicators.
• Recommend where the firm should build, partner, harvest or withdraw, including a sequenced treatment of customers and obligations affected by any exit.
• Reframe the three-year plan around a small number of portfolio convictions, stating the evidence that would cause each conviction to be revised.
• Allocate product, data and engineering capacity through transparent stage gates rather than annual negotiation or executive sponsorship alone.
• Review embedded-lending and co-lending partnerships for strategic control, economic leakage, data access, customer accountability and concentration.
• Establish a portfolio-delivery office that tracks decisions, dependencies and realised value without creating a parallel management hierarchy.
• Lead strategic capability across analytics, market intelligence, portfolio management and business development; improve internal movement into line roles.
• Prepare board choices on acquisition, disposal or platform partnership where organic delivery cannot reach the desired position within acceptable time or risk.

The first 12 months

Within 60 days, complete a product and partner census that reconciles strategic claims to realised cohorts. Select representative customer journeys and follow them from acquisition through repayment, repeat use, complaint and collections. Identify shared capacity constraints and quantify commitments already embedded in vendor, funding and partner agreements.

By day 120, present no more than four portfolio choices. Each must state target customers, source of advantage, full economics, conduct boundary, technology implications, capital need and a credible stop test. The board should also receive an exit or containment proposal for propositions that cannot earn continued investment.

The following six months are for execution. Reassign scarce engineering and analytics capacity, renegotiate or close weak partnerships, and install quarterly portfolio reviews based on leading evidence rather than project traffic lights. At least one decision should release material capital or capacity; at least one growth conviction should move from hypothesis to controlled market proof.

At twelve months, 90% of discretionary product investment should be aligned to approved portfolio convictions; proposals outside them should carry explicit exception approval. The portfolio should have released or redirected at least ₹250 crore of capital and annualised cost. Customer-outcome and risk-adjusted contribution reporting should cover 95% of material products, and every retained partnership should have a named strategic purpose and renewal threshold.

What the board will measure

• The quality and speed of build, partner, harvest and exit decisions, including whether difficult choices actually reach implementation.
• Capital and engineering capacity moved away from low-conviction activity and towards propositions that meet proof thresholds.
• Growth in priority customer cohorts after credit loss, acquisition, servicing and conduct cost.
• Closure of customer and contractual obligations arising from discontinued products without avoidable complaints or regulatory escalation.
• Forecast accuracy of strategic cases at their stated decision gates, not artificial precision over three years.
• Strength of portfolio leaders and the degree to which business executives use the common evidence base rather than recreate private versions.

The person

You have 22–28 years across digital lending, retail credit, payments, regulated fintech or strategy roles with direct capital consequences. You may be a business strategist, portfolio executive, product leader or former line operator, but you must have owned the implementation of choices affecting at least ₹2,900 crore in assets, investment or accountable portfolio and a community of 300 or more employees and partners.

Your record contains a genuine discontinuity: a product closed, a partnership restructured, a market exited or investment decisively concentrated. You can show what you recommended, which evidence changed the internal debate, how customers were treated and whether the expected value appeared later. Advisory assignments count only where references can establish your personal decision and delivery ownership.

You are numerate without being mechanically financial. You understand lending cohorts and conduct signals, can reason about platform capacity and contracts, and know when an option’s strategic value deserves treatment beyond current-period profit. Senior executives should experience you as a source of clarity rather than another planning layer.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is indicated at ₹2.2–3.0 crore plus performance variable. Measures will reward decision quality, released capital and capacity, economics of priority propositions, customer treatment and portfolio-team effectiveness. This is a permanent hybrid appointment in Mumbai. The planned hiring timetable allows consideration of a responsible notice period.

Confidentiality

The underlying portfolio will be identified after preliminary suitability and conflict checks and acceptance of confidentiality. Product mix, scale and remediation context have been deliberately blended. Candidates must not attempt to identify the firm through intermediaries or approach institutions that appear to fit fragments of the description.