EVP – Strategy and Portfolio — Data-Products Franchise

The mandate

A privately held data-products franchise has carried unresolved portfolio choices through several planning cycles. Products share data and platform capabilities but compete for engineering and commercial resources. The board needs one executive to translate strategy into decisive capital allocation.

The EVP – Strategy and Portfolio will steward approximately ₹1,800 crore in annual recurring revenue and lead around 875 employees and material partners. Scope includes portfolio strategy, product and market choices, capital allocation, partnerships, competitive intelligence, business cases and execution governance. The reporting authority is the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor.

The portfolio baseline will connect product cohorts to complete economics. ARR, retention, expansion, gross margin, data cost, cloud consumption, service, reliability, development and cash should reconcile. Products that depend on shared capabilities must carry their demand and contribution transparently.

Each product will receive an explicit posture: invest, repair, maintain, combine, partner or exit. Decisions should reflect customer need, differentiation, economics, reliability and strategic option value. Sunk development, internal sponsorship and a small group of vocal customers cannot substitute for evidence.

Reliability is a portfolio constraint. Shared data pipelines, models, infrastructure and operational processes create correlated risk. The EVP will direct investment to bottlenecks whose repair protects several products and prevent growth roadmaps consuming capacity required for resilience.

Capital cases need comparable gates. Customer adoption, delivery capacity, cash, reliability, data rights and stop criteria should be visible. The strategy team will challenge cases independently but product leaders remain accountable for outcomes. Failure at a gate must change funding or sequence.

Growth sequencing will reflect dependencies. Market entry, product extension and partnership should not all assume the same specialists or platform release. The executive will show the board what can happen together, what must wait and what work will stop to release capacity.

Partnerships may accelerate data access, distribution or specialist capability. They require economics, customer ownership, intellectual property, data permission, resilience, governance and exit. The franchise should not outsource a strategic dependency it cannot explain or replace.

Execution governance will use leading indicators and trigger decisions. Adoption, retention, delivery, reliability, cash and people should reveal whether the thesis remains valid. Market movement must be separated from management action; forecast changes need named causes and responses.

The organisation will build portfolio leaders who combine product, technology and commercial judgement. Decision rights across strategy, product and platform teams must be explicit. Succession will be tested through real capital and stop decisions rather than presentation skill.

Why this seat is open

This urgent new role replaces distributed portfolio ownership after reliability constraints reached the next capital gate. Interim forums protect existing commitments, but the board aims to complete appointment within six to eight weeks.

What you will own

• Set explicit investment postures across the data-product portfolio.
• Steward ₹1,800 crore of ARR, capital and forecasts.
• Direct shared-platform investment to material reliability bottlenecks.
• Sequence growth against engineering, data and customer dependencies.
• Govern partnerships through economics, data rights and exit.
• Lead approximately 875 employees and partners with portfolio succession.
• Stop or combine products that fail agreed continuation gates.
• Give the board transparent choices, scenarios and downside actions.

The first 12 months

The opening 90 days should reconcile portfolio economics and reliability dependencies. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to choice, including customers, product, engineering, finance, operations, partners and capital sponsors. Assess leaders and agree investment gates.

Months four to nine should settle priority product postures, redirect capital and sequence platform repair. Stop duplicated roadmaps and renegotiate fragile partnerships. Early value may be avoided investment, improved reliability, released capacity or accelerated growth in a defensible product.

By year end, capital allocation and the sequenced growth agenda should operate as a repeatable system. Delivery must remain within 10% of approval and forecasts should reconcile ARR, cash, customers and people for three quarters. Priority portfolio risks need independent closure proof; severe escalation cannot remain unresolved beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Capital movement following explicit product continuation gates.
• ARR quality and contribution after platform and reliability cost.
• Shared bottlenecks removed with multi-product customer benefit.
• Growth milestones achieved without hidden dependency conflicts.
• Retain more than nine in ten pivotal leaders and ready cover for seven in ten direct roles.
• Partner value, data control, resilience and exit readiness.

The person

You are an EVP Strategy, Chief Strategy Officer or Portfolio Head with 22–28 years in software, cloud, digital platforms, IT services or technology-enabled business services. You have resolved long-deferred portfolio choices with enterprise authority across functions and markets.

Your accountable P&L, book, budget or portfolio has been at least ₹1,050 crore, and you have led 625 or more people. You can evidence results sustained over two reporting periods.

You understand data products, recurring economics and platform reliability. You can challenge powerful product sponsors, make shared constraints visible and retain followership through stop and exit decisions.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹2.2–3.0 crore plus performance variable. The permanent Bengaluru role is hybrid and expects relocation, although structured weekly commuting may be considered during the first quarter; notice up to six months is acceptable.

Confidentiality

The company, product portfolio, customers and reliability exposure remain confidential. Identifying information follows reciprocal interest and an undertaking; published facts are composite.