Group Chief Financial Officer — Finance-Services Hub

The mandate

A Hyderabad finance-services hub closes books, supports statutory reporting and runs specialist planning activities for businesses in several jurisdictions. The hub must build deeper specialist capability in controllership roles, establish sustainable workforce economics, and secure succession across critical finance functions.

The Group Chief Financial Officer is being appointed to restore financial control while redesigning the service franchise as a place where finance careers are built, not consumed. The remit encompasses an annual services budget of roughly ₹2,850 crore and about 1,625 employees and partners. It covers record-to-report, management reporting, tax support, treasury operations, planning centres of excellence and governance of finance automation. Legal-entity CFOs retain their statutory duties; this role owns the quality, capacity and economics of the shared engine on which those officers rely.

The immediate risk is human as much as technical. Experienced reviewers have left faster than replacements can be accredited, span of control has widened, and a promised automation programme has removed tasks without redesigning roles. The appointee must make clear where controls require qualified judgement, where work can be standardised and which activities should return to business units. The executive committee expects candour about service risk and will support temporary cost where it protects a credible recovery.

Why this seat is open

The previous CFO left following an accelerated personal transition. An experienced controller is maintaining approvals but cannot absorb the full portfolio alongside existing duties. The nominations and remuneration committee has classified this as an urgent replacement and wants a permanent leader identified within six to eight weeks. The search will handle the predecessor’s departure neutrally and preserve employee confidence until a transition plan is ready.

What you will own

• Establish the true status of close, reconciliation, access-control and statutory-support obligations across every served jurisdiction; escalate any unsupported assurance immediately.
• Rebuild the finance-services workforce plan by process, qualification and shift, separating enduring capability gaps from vacancies created by poor scheduling or avoidable work.
• Personally chair a recovery forum for the highest-risk accounts until ageing, evidence and reviewer capacity return within policy.
• Decide the future location and sourcing model for specialist finance work, including what remains in Hyderabad, moves to another centre, returns to the business or is retired.
• Redesign management reporting so service cost, quality, rework and control exposure can be traced to accountable owners and sponsoring businesses.
• Reset relationships with legal-entity CFOs and external auditors, agreeing service responsibilities without diluting their independent obligations.
• Sponsor automation only where the control design, retained judgement and benefit owner are explicit; pause deployments that merely move exceptions downstream.
• Build a finance leadership bench with professional accreditation, cross-border experience and credible emergency cover for each critical approval role.

The first 12 months

Within 30 days, the CFO must provide the audit committee with a risk-ranked control and capacity assessment. By day 90, every overdue high-risk reconciliation will have an owner and closure date, critical shifts will carry minimum reviewer coverage, and the board will see a reconciled bridge from headline attrition to service failure and cost. The aim is an honest baseline, not cosmetic clearance.

Months four to nine will focus on stabilising the operating model. Priority roles should be filled, spans corrected and qualification pathways reopened. The CFO will settle the disposition of work that is structurally unsuitable for the hub and implement capacity planning around reporting peaks. Two high-volume processes should demonstrate lower rework after targeted automation and role redesign.

At 12 months, overdue high-risk reconciliations should be below 1% of the relevant population, regretted attrition in accredited roles should have fallen by at least eight percentage points, contractor expenditure should be 20% below the opening run rate, and reporting deadlines should have been met for three consecutive quarters without exceptional overtime. Audit findings attributable to hub execution must be closed by agreed dates.

What the board will measure

• No material misstatement, missed statutory filing or concealed control breach arising from the finance-services operation.
• Monthly service forecasts within 5% for cost and capacity after the second quarter, with demand assumptions signed by business CFOs.
• A 25% improvement in first-time-right processing across the two weakest end-to-end finance processes.
• Identified successors for all critical direct reports and a 90% retention rate among specifically designated control talent.
• A board-approved location and sourcing plan that releases measurable cost without transferring unresolved control risk.

The person

You are a Group CFO, divisional CFO or senior controller who has operated a large cross-border finance platform and remained personally accountable when service conditions deteriorated. The strongest evidence will combine statutory discipline, workforce recovery and shared-services economics. Candidates whose experience is limited to transformation sponsorship without ownership of close, control or audit outcomes will not meet the requirement.

You bring 22–28 years of experience and should have controlled at least ₹1,650 crore of budget or accountable financial scope while leading 1,150 or more employees. You understand how global process ownership interacts with local fiduciary duties, and you can distinguish intelligent standardisation from control centralisation. The committee will probe a period when you disclosed bad news early, funded containment and still restored confidence.

This is an onsite Hyderabad appointment. The urgency of the recovery requires visible leadership with reporting teams and their internal customers.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is expected to fall between ₹3.2 crore and ₹4.6 crore, supplemented by performance variable and long-term incentives. The final mix will reflect control accountability, current remuneration and agreed recovery objectives. Incentive conditions will expressly protect audit independence and permit downward adjustment for control failure. A rapid selection is intended, subject to the candidate’s contractual notice obligations.

Confidentiality

Only the generic operating model and rounded scale are published. The jurisdictions served, parent identity, auditor and affected processes will be provided after qualification and a mutual confidentiality undertaking. Applicants must neither circulate the scenario nor attempt to identify the employer through the location and workforce figures.