Interim Chief Financial Officer, NBFC Finance Continuity — Return Cover

The mandate

A personal and vehicle lending company needs an interim CFO for a fixed twelve months, after which the permanent executive returns to the seat. The operating business will continue through quarterly reporting, audit work and routine finance obligations during that period. The interim CFO will hold executive finance accountability, preserve dependable controls and give the team clear decisions. The purpose is continuity with proportionate improvement, ensuring that finance issues are resolved or escalated through the right route without using temporary cover as a reason to reopen the company's entire operating model.

The appointment starts on 26 October 2026 for a fixed twelve-month term at four days weekly, principally onsite in Mumbai. Twenty-two professionals report across accounting, finance operations and reporting. The permanent executive returns at the end of the term, so this is return cover and no permanent replacement search is planned. The opening month will confirm close responsibilities, critical submissions and delegated sign-offs, alongside a named internal lead able to sustain routine matters on the fifth working day and escalate an urgent exception promptly.

The interim CFO may allocate finance resources, approve routine obligations within existing limits and lead financial reporting preparation. Material accounting judgements follow qualified controller, auditor and audit-committee review; capital actions and new strategic commitments require their established approvals. Compliance retains regulatory interpretation and filing responsibility. Risk and credit leaders retain portfolio assessments. The CFO is accountable for finance using those inputs correctly, maintaining evidence and escalating unresolved issues rather than allowing deadlines to justify unsupported certificates or incomplete management representations.

The scope excludes a new ERP implementation, loan-product redesign and a major refinancing programme. Existing system issues affecting reliable finance operation remain within continuity work, but a broader transformation needs separate authorisation. Handover to the returning incumbent includes a current decision log, outstanding audit matters, finance submission history and a close cycle run jointly before transfer. The term has no extension. The CEO and audit committee confirm acceptance through observed control operation and transparent residual risks, not an assumption that the returning executive automatically resolves every issue arising during the term.

What you will own

• Confirm the opening finance continuity map with close owners, submission dates and delegated approvals, identifying any task dependent on the permanent executive's personal knowledge before it becomes a missed or unsupported obligation.
• Lead recurring close and management reporting through reconciled evidence, requiring qualified review of material estimates and preserving unresolved issues visibly rather than treating timely production as proof of reliable financial information.
• Decide routine finance priorities and approved expenditure within delegation, establishing an internal escalation route for non-attendance days so the four-day commitment does not leave urgent decisions without accountable coverage.
• Govern finance inputs to corporate and regulated submissions with compliance owners, ensuring certificates and representations are supported by actual records while leaving legal interpretation and formal filing authority in their proper perimeter.
• Resolve existing finance-operation and system-control issues proportionately, distinguishing essential continuity repairs from changes that would expand the engagement into a new ERP or broader transformation programme.
• Maintain an incumbent-return handover record throughout the term, including decisions, residual exposures, audit correspondence and team responsibilities so transfer is not compressed into a last-week reconstruction of executive knowledge.
• Present final acceptance evidence to the CEO and audit committee after a jointly run close cycle, identifying any remaining matter and its owner before delegated executive accountability returns to the incumbent.

Candidate qualifications

• Bring a career of twenty-eight years or more, including regulated-company finance leadership and CFO or equivalent executive accounting responsibility. Show a period when you maintained a finance function through absence, transition or demanding operating conditions. Your evidence must identify decisions and representations you personally owned, not merely a team that met reporting dates while unresolved technical matters remained outside your oversight.
• Bring rigorous accounting, finance operations and corporate-reporting competence through relevant professional preparation or equivalent established senior practice. Explain how you obtained qualified review of a material estimate or submission under deadline pressure. The role requires dependable records and clear technical boundaries; finance leadership must not replace regulatory, credit or audit specialists' conclusions with an unsupported executive assertion.
• Have led managers capable of sustaining routine processes while escalating consequential exceptions. Describe how you assigned responsibility, protected segregation and avoided dependence on one executive's private knowledge. The four-day arrangement requires a credible internal coverage method, with evidence that an urgent matter can reach an authorised decision-maker rather than waiting silently for the next planned onsite day.
• Be available for the stated start, fixed term and onsite commitment, with no conflicting engagement that would undermine continuity. Demonstrate a disciplined return or successor transfer that tested actual operation and disclosed residual issues honestly. Confidentiality, respect for the returning executive and restraint around unnecessary restructuring are essential. Improvement should strengthen enduring team ownership while keeping the temporary appointment's boundaries and final handover clear.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 15 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-INT-2026-IND-248.