Joint Managing Director – Operations — Digital Lending Portfolio

The mandate

A digital lender has adopted a split leadership model for a demanding phase of scale. The CEO will continue to own products, partnerships, funding and growth; the Joint Managing Director will carry origination operations, servicing, customer assistance, payments, collections and operational control. The model is deliberate, not ceremonial. Channel migration is shifting millions of interactions from agents and call centres to self-service, while delinquency and vulnerability require human judgement in precisely the cases least suited to blanket automation.

The appointee will lead approximately 900 employees and material partners and an operating and book perimeter of about ₹8,600 crore. Several activities are delivered by outsourced contact, field and document partners. Current service metrics celebrate digital adoption and queue closure, but do not consistently show repeat contact, failed payment arrangements or downstream collections impact. The JMD must create an operating view that follows the customer and account rather than the channel.

The leadership design will succeed only if boundaries are explicit. Product owns proposition; technology owns engineering; risk owns independent standards and challenge. Operations must shape requirements, accept production readiness and own customer outcomes after release. The JMD will hold authority to pause migration where assisted capacity, data or control evidence is insufficient.

Why this seat is open

The previous operations leader is leaving earlier than the agreed succession date, making this an urgent replacement. The board accelerated a planned split between commercial and operating leadership rather than placing the entire remit temporarily with the CEO. Interim leaders maintain daily controls, but the next migration wave and collections partner renewal need permanent executive judgement within six to eight weeks.

What you will own

• Run the complete operating chain from application verification and disbursement through servicing, payments, hardship and recovery.
• Define channel eligibility by customer need, account state and complexity, retaining assisted routes where digital-only treatment would be unfair or ineffective.
• Improve collections through segmentation, contact strategy, payment-plan quality, agency governance and consistent treatment of vulnerable customers.
• Set acceptance criteria for operational releases, including volume, exception, reconciliation, accessibility and recoverability evidence.
• Rebuild partner governance around outcomes, call quality, data protection, capacity and conduct rather than lowest unit price.
• Simplify hand-offs among customer service, payments, fraud, disputes and collections; remove incentives to close work into another queue.
• Lead workforce redeployment and capability change across 900 employees and partners, with clear consultation and no reliance on attrition assumptions.
• Maintain a constructive operating compact with the CEO, escalating disagreements through evidence and agreed reserved matters.

The first 12 months

In the opening month, secure daily disbursement, payment, complaint, hardship and collections controls during transition. Sample journeys that changed channel and accounts that returned repeatedly. Reconcile operational dashboards with complaint files, broken promises to pay and downstream cure. Establish which outsourced processes could not continue if a partner failed with little notice.

By day 90, agree the JMD–CEO decision map and a customer-state operating model. Rebase migration economics after including exception labour and repeat contact. Set eligibility and rollback rules for the next wave, approve the collections partner strategy and identify leadership changes needed before peak demand.

Months four to nine should consolidate queues around account resolution, introduce digital support before failure, redeploy colleagues to complex service and improve agency evidence. Exercise a significant partner exit or outage scenario. Each technology release must show improved customer and account outcomes in production before further volume moves.

At twelve months, eligible digital completion should exceed 82%, but repeat contact must fall by at least 30% and payment-plan breakage by 15%. Ninety-five per cent of critical exceptions should remain inside risk-based ageing limits. Collections cure should improve against a stable cohort without higher complaints or coercive-contact findings. Operating cost per resolved account should fall by 16%, with no material reconciliation or customer-treatment failure.

What the board will measure

• Resolution and cure outcomes by customer state, including repeat demand and broken arrangements.
• Fair access to assistance and treatment of vulnerable or digitally excluded borrowers.
• Loss, service and control performance through migration waves.
• Third-party quality, concentration and tested continuity.
• Responsible workforce redeployment and leadership succession.
• Clarity and effectiveness of the split executive model when commercial and operating priorities conflict.

The person

You bring 28 or more years in consumer lending, cards, retail banking, servicing or collections, including enterprise COO or managing-director accountability. Your past remit includes at least ₹5,000 crore in assets, operating value or P&L and 900 employees and partners across in-house and outsourced delivery.

You have migrated channels while protecting customers who need assistance and have led collections through a change in credit conditions. You can quantify cure, roll rates, complaints, service cost and partner performance. The board needs an operator who understands technology deeply enough to accept change intelligently but does not hide service problems behind roadmap dependencies.

Joint accountability requires low ego and sharp boundaries. You can disagree with a growth-oriented CEO without creating camps, and accept product choices once risks and responsibilities are explicit. References should establish how you behaved during operational strain, not only what the final transformation reported.

Compensation and terms

The package comprises ₹5.0–7.5 crore fixed plus performance variable and long-term incentive. Measures will combine customer resolution, credit outcomes, operating cost, channel effectiveness, control and organisational health. This is a permanent onsite role in Gurugram. The firm will balance urgency with a safe release from the candidate’s present responsibilities.

Confidentiality

The lender and its leadership transition remain confidential. Identity and detailed portfolio information will be released only after fit, conflict and confidentiality steps. Figures and circumstances are composite; no reader should use them to guess or test the client’s identity.