Chief Financial Officer – Transformation — Electric-Mobility Platform

The mandate

An electric-mobility platform has reached the point at which vehicle deployment can no longer be financed by conviction alone. It operates charging, battery-service and fleet programmes for commercial users, but each proposition has been modelled with different utilisation, electricity-loss and asset-life assumptions. Reported gross margin consequently says little about cash return. The new transformation CFO will create an investable economic architecture before the next deployment wave.

Approximately 1,000 employees and partners fall within the transformation perimeter. The business contracts with fleet customers, site hosts, power suppliers, vehicle financiers and equipment vendors; timing differences between their cash flows create hidden working-capital strain. The appointee will not displace the statutory finance leader. Instead, they will hold a time-bound enterprise remit spanning value tracking, business-model finance, capital governance and data integrity, with direct access to the Chief Executive and board committee.

The essential question is where ownership should sit. Batteries, chargers and vehicles can be owned, leased, financed for customers or placed with infrastructure partners. Each structure transfers risk differently and changes the apparent unit economics. The executive must expose those consequences and install gates that prevent hopeful utilisation from becoming booked capital.

Why this seat is open

This planned new appointment was approved alongside the next three-year investment plan. Finance, operations and commercial teams have improved their own models, but nobody is accountable for reconciling them into one transformation case. The board chose to build the seat before funding commitments rather than add retrospective programme assurance after assets are ordered.

What you will own

• Define unit economics separately for charging sessions, battery services and managed fleets, including losses, downtime, maintenance, financing and residual risk.
• Create a capital gate that tests customer commitment, site readiness, utilisation ramp and downside recovery before purchase orders are released.
• Reconcile contract contribution to cash by cohort and expose subsidies, minimum guarantees and bundled discounts that currently disappear between systems.
• Recommend asset-ownership structures by proposition and counterparty risk, supported by after-tax return and balance-sheet capacity.
• Build a transformation value office small enough to remain accountable; benefits require a baseline, finance owner and evidence of banked cash or avoided capital.
• Partner with procurement on charger and battery terms, particularly warranties, performance guarantees, spares and obsolescence protection.
• Establish a rolling 18-month liquidity view linked to deployment decisions rather than a static annual budget.
• Prepare the board's funding narrative and diligence room without presenting stretch utilisation as a base case.

The first 12 months

The first quarter is for reconstruction. Select three recent deployment cohorts and trace approved business cases through utilisation, energy draw, uptime, maintenance and customer collections. Agree definitions with engineering and operations, identify stranded or underused assets and suspend only commitments that cannot pass a rapid fact review. Present the board with a comparable return map and the decisions it enables.

By month seven, all new deployments should pass the revised gate, procurement contracts should reflect lifetime-performance risk, and commercial proposals should show cash payback under a documented downside. The transformation office should publish monthly value evidence, including cancelled benefits and missed assumptions rather than only successes.

Within 12 months, reduce committed capital per productive vehicle or charging point by 12%, release at least ₹150 crore from cancelled, rephased or restructured deployments, improve collections ageing by 20 days and achieve forecast accuracy within 8% for deployment cash. At least 90% of live assets should have an accountable cohort-return view; the board should compare ownership options without model reconciliation outside the meeting.

What the board will measure

• Capital avoided or redeployed because decision gates changed an actual commitment, independently confirmed by controllership.
• Cohort returns that include all energy, warranty, downtime and financing effects and remain stable across three monthly closes.
• Working-capital improvement without transferring unreasonable cash pressure to smaller operating partners.
• Deployment forecasts that distinguish contracted demand, probable demand and speculative pipeline.
• Adoption of the economic model by commercial and operations leaders, evidenced through changed proposals and stopped projects.
• A sustainable handover of transformation disciplines into business finance before the temporary remit becomes permanent bureaucracy.

The person

You are a transformation CFO, divisional CFO or senior value-creation leader with 22–28 years of experience. You have financed asset deployment under uncertain utilisation and can explain how accounting margin, cash payback and economic return diverged in a real portfolio. Relevant backgrounds include mobility, renewable infrastructure, telecom towers, equipment-as-a-service and distributed energy.

The minimum scale is ₹2,500 crore of directly accountable capital or business scope and leadership influence across at least 700 employees and partners. You must challenge engineers without pretending to be one, test commercial demand without paralysing sales and show the board which uncertainty can be priced rather than eliminated. Experience standing up a value office is relevant only if claimed benefits survived audit and budget cycles.

The position is onsite in Mumbai and requires frequent visits to charging and fleet locations. The successful candidate will be comfortable with a defined transformation horizon and with transferring ownership when the system works.

Compensation and terms

The appointment carries ₹2.2–3.0 crore fixed plus performance variable tied to verified cash, capital efficiency and embedded controls. It is a permanent, onsite Mumbai position reporting to the Group Chief Executive and relevant board committee. Final responsibilities will be aligned with the statutory CFO to preserve unambiguous accountabilities. A notice period of up to six months is workable.

Confidentiality

The platform's name, investors, technology suppliers and deployment map are withheld. Rounded figures describe the challenge but should not be treated as clues to a particular company. Further operating information follows mutual diligence and a signed undertaking; speculative approaches to customers, employees or financiers will end the process.