Strategic Adviser to Chief Digital Officer — API Banking

The mandate

The bank repeatedly returns to one unresolved choice: should its API estate remain a servicing utility for existing corporate clients or become a priced distribution business in its own right? Previous cases blended strategic value with revenue forecasts and left directors unable to compare options.

The adviser will spend two days monthly in a product-economics clinic and an executive challenge session, joining every alternate-month Digital Investment Committee meeting. Questions tied to an imminent partner or capital decision require acknowledgement within twenty-four hours and a response within three working days.

This is an eight-month term ending with the annual platform-capital allocation; renewal for up to four months rests with the Chief Digital Officer and committee chair jointly. The adviser holds no line authority or executive responsibility, cannot select partners, and carries no product P&L accountability.

No more than three concurrent advisory appointments are acceptable. Work for a competing transaction bank, corporate treasury platform, account aggregator or API gateway pursuing the same customer cohort must be declared, as must equity in any proposed ecosystem partner.

Why the board wants this voice

The team understands delivery but has not commercialised regulated APIs at scale. Finance challenges revenue assumptions after roadmaps are approved, and sales values relationship effects that product cannot quantify. The committee wants a practitioner able to connect architecture choices to adoption and margin.

What you will own

• Interrogate the segmentation logic for large corporates, mid-market treasuries, fintech distributors and embedded-finance partners.
• Test willingness-to-pay assumptions against integration effort, service obligations and the value of deposit or transaction flows.
• Challenge the proposed product catalogue for duplication, weak differentiation and hidden operational liabilities.
• Shape principles for pricing, revenue sharing, minimum commitments and partner-funded implementation.
• Press management to distinguish reusable platform investment from bespoke client development disguised as product.
• Guide the committee toward decision metrics for active consumption, contribution margin, reliability and time to first value.
• Advise the Chief Digital Officer on sequencing ecosystem partnerships without surrendering customer ownership.

Candidate qualifications

• 18–22 years in digital banking, transaction products or regulated financial-platform leadership.
• Personal ownership of an API product portfolio that reached material third-party usage and recurring revenue.
• Demonstrable experience pricing corporate-banking or embedded-finance capabilities beyond simple call-based tariffs.
• Fluency in consent, authentication, service-level, reconciliation and partner-liability considerations.
• Prior participation in executive investment committees deciding multi-year digital-platform capital.
• Ability to disclose commercial ties across banks, fintechs, aggregators and technology vendors.

Non-negotiables

• Availability for two Mumbai working days monthly and all scheduled committee sessions.
• No live mandate with a direct API-banking competitor aimed at the same enterprise segment.
• Independence from sales commissions, referral fees or success payments involving potential partners.
• Response within three working days when a documented investment decision is awaiting advice.

1. 49 words maximum. Name one banking API portfolio you commercialised and the usage and margin measure that best proved it was a business.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current fintech, bank or platform relationships could constrain your advice on partner selection here?
3. 49 words maximum. What recurring two-day monthly cadence can you commit through the next annual capital-allocation cycle?