Managing Director – India Platform — AI Safety Programme

The mandate

Two successful India businesses have reached the point where separate plans, commercial rules and technical priorities are constraining the next stage of growth. Their customers overlap, their specialist talent increasingly moves between programmes, and both depend on expensive foundation-model capacity. Yet investment cases are still prepared through different assumptions and safety decisions travel through different forums. The board has chosen to combine them around an AI safety programme rather than preserve parallel structures. The new Managing Director – India Platform will make that combination operational, credible and profitable.

The perimeter represents approximately ₹1,200 crore in AI product and services revenue and about 700 employees and material partners. It includes product, research, engineering, delivery and customer activity across India, Bengaluru and the wider operating region. Model-cost escalation is the immediate pressure. Compute usage, evaluation demands, client-specific adaptation and third-party commitments have grown faster than the commercial disciplines governing them. Cutting indiscriminately would weaken product quality and trust; continuing without intervention would make growth progressively less valuable.

This is therefore a country-integration role with a technically consequential agenda. You will establish one plan that connects customer choices, model architecture, safety evidence, capacity commitments and unit economics. Some propositions will receive more investment, some will be redesigned, and some activity will stop. The board expects these choices to be legible: every material commitment should show its economic owner, safety threshold, evidence requirement and effect on scarce engineering capacity.

Why this seat is open

This permanent position is newly created for the next operating model, not an incumbent replacement. Existing leaders remain responsible for their businesses until the combined remit is activated. A planned search of four to six months allows the appointment to precede the next capital and talent cycle without forcing premature structural announcements. The hybrid role is based in Bengaluru and reports to the Group Chief Executive and the board.

What you will own

You will define the common value-creation thesis and reduce a crowded programme list to a small set of funded priorities. That requires a reliable view of revenue quality, inference and training cost, delivery effort, contractual risk and the commercial value of safety assurance. Finance and engineering must reconcile their baselines; sales cannot price bespoke work without understanding technical consumption; product teams need clear authority to refuse exceptions that compromise the platform.

Organisation design is equally important. You will decide which capabilities become shared, where customer or product ownership stays distinct and how research decisions enter commercial governance. The leadership team needs explicit decision rights and credible successors in critical posts. The larger organisation should see integration as a route to better work and stronger careers, not simply an exercise in removing duplication. Retaining scarce AI, evaluation and safety talent through the change will demand visible choices and direct communication.

Externally, you will protect confidence among enterprise customers and material partners while standards converge. Major accounts will need assurance that contracted outcomes, responsible-AI commitments and service continuity remain intact. Capacity providers and specialist vendors should face one negotiation logic. The Group Chief Executive and board must receive an honest account of exceptions, downside exposure and the investments required to create a scalable India platform.

The first 12 months

During the first 90 days, build a reconciled baseline for both businesses. Map product contribution, customer concentration, compute consumption, evaluation load, delivery capacity and safety obligations at a level that supports decisions. Meet the stakeholders who can expose hidden dependencies, assess every direct report and stabilise any immediate customer or control risk. Bring the board a scorecard, integration principles and explicit gates for contested capital.

From months four to nine, implement the chosen operating model. Consolidate duplicated forums, establish shared commercial and technical guardrails, fill leadership gaps and reset investment around the strongest propositions. Early proof should include a measurable improvement in model economics without erosion of safety performance or customer outcomes. Exceptions should be time-bound and owned, not permitted to become a second operating system.

By month twelve, the combined platform should be running one country plan with integrated governance and evidence of profitable scale. Present a three-year value case linking growth, model cost, talent and risk, supported by downside actions rather than optimistic sensitivity alone. The following year’s capacity and leadership commitments should follow directly from that case.

What the board will measure

The first-year value case should land within 10% of approval, with emerging variance surfaced before quarter close. Forecasts must reconcile revenue, cash, customer delivery, compute capacity and workforce assumptions for three consecutive quarters. The material operating constraint behind model-cost escalation needs a quantified improvement from an agreed baseline and an accountable data owner.

The board will also test whether the integration is durable. Its most consequential execution and safety issues should close by agreed dates with evidence that remedies hold. At least 90% of critical talent should remain, and ready-now cover should exist for 70% of direct reports. No severe escalation may age beyond 30 days without an explicit board decision.

The person

You are likely a Country MD, India CEO or Regional Business President with at least 28 years in AI, enterprise software, data infrastructure, cloud, analytics, applied research or a closely comparable setting. You have owned a P&L, book, budget or accountable portfolio of at least ₹1,300 crore and led no fewer than 700 people. Functional excellence without country-level commercial, people and governance accountability is insufficient.

Your evidence should include the integration of previously separate businesses and a moment when technical consumption threatened otherwise attractive growth. You can explain how you challenged internal assumptions, made portfolio choices and kept customers and specialists with the organisation. References must isolate your decisions and show that results lasted for at least two reporting periods.

Compensation and terms

The anticipated package is ₹5.0–7.5 crore fixed plus performance variable and LTI, calibrated to final scope and current mix. Standard vesting and performance conditions apply to long-term participation. A notice period of up to six months can be accommodated. The appointment offers regular access to the chair, executive committee and principal capital sponsors.

Confidentiality

The organisation and combination plan will be disclosed only after reciprocal interest and a confidentiality undertaking. Market, scale and operating circumstances are deliberately rounded and blended and should not be used to identify a particular enterprise.