Chief Financial Officer – Transformation — Consumer-Finance Book

The mandate

The consumer-finance book has arrived at a difficult intersection: funding has repriced faster than customer yields, newer vintages are showing uneven early arrears, and management cannot yet explain product profitability from origination through collections on one consistent basis. The board needs a CFO who will stabilise core finance immediately, then finish a change programme that has produced tools and workstreams but not yet changed the decisions made by the business.

Approximately ₹4,450 crore sits within the accountable asset and investment perimeter. The finance, analytics and programme community comprises about 275 employees and material partners. Products include unsecured and secured consumer propositions originated through both direct and partner channels. Different systems govern acquisition spend, underwriting, disbursement, servicing and recovery, creating disputes over which vintage, partner or customer segment created value. The new CFO must end those disputes through evidence while retaining the speed required in a competitive market.

The core issue is margin compression, but the remedy cannot be a blunt lending slowdown. The book needs sharper risk-adjusted pricing, deliberate funding choices, earlier recognition of channel deterioration and a materially cheaper finance architecture. The CFO will determine which transformation initiatives deserve completion, which should be stopped, and how savings are protected from being absorbed by new reconciliation work elsewhere.

The appointment combines fiduciary accountability and operating intervention. It requires a leader prepared to challenge growth plans, examine model performance with credit colleagues, and make collections economics visible without presenting finance as the second risk function. The relevant board committee expects direct access to facts, including facts that complicate the annual plan.

Why this seat is open

This is an urgent replacement following an accelerated, professionally managed departure. Several finance-transformation milestones and the next funding plan fall within the coming two quarters, so an extended interim arrangement would expose the organisation to avoidable execution and key-person risk. The outgoing executive will support a finite handover; the incoming CFO will have authority to change sequencing, leadership and partners after completing an independent assessment. Confidentiality is essential until the internal transition is announced.

What you will own

• Create a single product-and-vintage profit view spanning acquisition cost, expected and realised credit loss, funding, servicing effort, collections recovery and partner economics.
• Reforecast net interest margin under alternative funding, repricing, prepayment and loss scenarios; identify where customer-price action is commercially possible and where origination should be constrained.
• Secure the monthly close, balance-sheet substantiation and regulatory reporting while migrating away from manual reconciliations that have accumulated during transformation.
• Review the ₹4,450 crore asset and investment perimeter for concentration, liquidity, impairment sensitivity and capital consumption, bringing explicit choices to the board.
• Rebase the finance-transformation portfolio, terminating projects without an accountable decision benefit and protecting the delivery of ledger, planning and data-lineage changes that matter.
• Establish joint finance, risk and business reviews of new vintages and partner channels, with pre-agreed thresholds for investigation, repricing, limit changes or pause.
• Develop the 275-person finance and analytics organisation, settle the boundary between central and product finance, and replace dependency on contractors in critical control processes.
• Lead funding and investor conversations with a coherent explanation of book performance, downside protection and the path to restored margin.

The first 12 months

The first month is about control and truth. Confirm critical sign-offs, cash and funding deadlines, impairment judgements, regulatory submissions and transformation dependencies. Independently review the three vintages and channels showing the largest divergence from approval assumptions. Provide the board with a transition-risk map and identify any decision that cannot wait for the full diagnostic.

By day 90, establish a reconciled bridge from customer yield to risk-adjusted contribution for every material product. Complete a funding and margin scenario set, decide the future of each major transformation workstream and name permanent owners for data quality. The first revised forecast should make changes in arrears, cure, recovery, prepayment and cost-to-serve assumptions visible rather than burying them in portfolio averages.

In months four to eight, implement product and channel actions, close priority data gaps and simplify the finance organisation. At least half of recurring manual reconciliations affecting margin or impairment should be eliminated or placed under time-bound remediation. Partner scorecards should combine volume, approval quality, early delinquency, fraud, complaint and lifetime economic performance.

By month twelve, the board expects controllable margin improvement of at least 80 basis points against the agreed rebased plan, without weakening underwriting or deferring necessary provision. Forecast error for net interest income and operating cash should remain below 8% across two quarters. The close should be three days faster, all high-risk balance-sheet reconciliations current, and the remaining transformation portfolio supported by named benefits, delivery dates and accountable executives.

What the board will measure

• Risk-adjusted contribution by product, channel and vintage, with movement explained through operating drivers.
• Funding diversity, weighted cost of funds and liquidity headroom under the approved downside case.
• Accuracy and timeliness of impairment, income recognition and regulatory submissions during the leadership transition.
• Measured elimination of manual finance activity and contractor dependency, not merely completion of system releases.
• Speed and quality of action when early-vintage performance departs from approved assumptions.
• A finance team able to sustain the new operating model after external advisers and programme resources leave.

The person

You are a CFO or finance-transformation leader from consumer lending, cards, retail banking, non-bank finance or another balance-sheet business with comparable customer and credit complexity. Across 22–28 years, you have held statutory or divisional finance accountability and personally worked through a period when funding cost, credit performance and commercial ambition moved in opposing directions.

Your experience includes a directly accountable perimeter of at least ₹2,600 crore and leadership of 275 or more employees and partners. You can interrogate vintage curves, expected-credit-loss judgements and channel economics while remaining anchored in the responsibilities of a CFO. You have also delivered material change to close, planning, ledger or finance data—not simply sponsored it from a steering committee.

The board is looking for calm urgency. You should be capable of taking control from a departing executive without indiscriminate reversal, and equally capable of stopping a well-funded programme when its claimed benefit cannot be evidenced. References must confirm your individual role in decisions and the durability of their outcomes.

Compensation and terms

Fixed remuneration is expected to fall between ₹2.2 crore and ₹3.0 crore, with an additional performance variable. Measures will reflect reporting integrity, margin restoration, transformation benefits, funding resilience and team effectiveness. The permanent role is onsite in Bengaluru. Transition arrangements will be agreed with the selected candidate, but the organisation favours the earliest responsible start over a compressed and risky handover.

Confidentiality

This search is being conducted before the leadership change is communicated more widely. Client identity and transition detail will therefore be shared only with suitably qualified candidates under confidentiality. All financial ranges and situational elements are intentionally composite and must not be used to infer or approach a named business.