Chief Executive Officer — Debt Syndication and Project Financing

The mandate

This is a Chief Executive appointment to own a debt syndication and project financing business end to end: origination, structuring, lender engagement, execution and the profit and loss that results. The seat exists because raising capital for infrastructure and industrial projects in India is decided less by the quality of a spreadsheet than by whether the person carrying the proposal can get it read, understood and championed inside a lending institution. That is the capability being bought.

The appointee inherits a mandate rather than a machine. Sponsors approach with project finance, trade finance, working capital and term loan requirements; the business converts those into structures that a consortium of public sector banks, private banks, non-banking financial companies and development institutions will actually fund. The Chief Executive is accountable for the closure rate, not for the pipeline slide.

Reporting to the Group Chairman, the role carries unusual latitude. There is no incumbent structure to inherit or dismantle, and no established syndicate desk to defend. The appointee decides which sectors to pursue, which sponsors to decline, how the fee model is set, and who joins the team.

Why this seat is open

The business has demonstrated that mandates can be won. What it has not yet built is the institutional relationship depth that turns a won mandate into a disbursed facility inside a predictable window. Sponsors do not leave because a structure was wrong; they leave because sanction took nine months and their project economics moved.

The Chairman has concluded that this is a leadership problem rather than a process one. Syndication is a business where the credit committee's confidence in the person presenting is part of the collateral. Building that from the centre, with one accountable executive who is personally known at CMD, CEO, CGM and Executive Director level across the lending system, is the change being made.

The appointment is being made now rather than after further growth because relationships of this kind take quarters to establish and cannot be bought at the point they are needed.

What you will own

Closure of mandates across project finance, trade finance, working capital and term lending, measured on facilities sanctioned and disbursed rather than proposals submitted. End-to-end execution for every mandate in the vertical's geography, from first sponsor conversation through information memorandum, lender roadshow, credit appraisal, sanction, documentation and disbursement.

The lender map is yours. You will be expected to hold and deepen working relationships across public sector banks, private banks, non-banking financial companies and financial institutions, at the seniority where an exception gets considered rather than merely logged. You will carry sponsors through prospective lenders' due diligence, anticipating the questions a credit committee will ask before it asks them.

You will own the vertical's profit and loss against an annual business plan, including fee realisation and cost. And you will recruit, mentor and run the team beneath you, which does not yet exist in the shape this business needs.

What the board will measure

Sanction-to-mandate conversion and the time taken to reach financial close. Whether the fee book is earned from execution rather than retainers. Whether the lender relationships are institutional and durable, or personal and portable. Whether the sectors pursued reflect deliberate choice or opportunistic acceptance.

The Chairman will also watch how declined mandates are handled. A syndication business that accepts everything sponsors bring will damage its credibility with lenders faster than it builds a fee book, and the judgement to refuse work is part of what is being appointed.

The first 12 months

Establish the lender map in person and in depth, and be able to name where each institution's appetite genuinely sits by sector, ticket size and structure. Take at least one complex mandate from origination to disbursement personally, so the team sees the standard rather than hears it described.

Set the vertical's sector focus and decline criteria, and agree them with the Chairman. Build the execution team against that focus, hiring for structuring depth and lender credibility rather than pipeline volume. Put in place a view of the profit and loss that separates fees earned on closure from fees earned on advisory, because those two are not the same business.

The person

Fifteen to twenty years or more in debt syndication, asset restructuring and proposal execution, with a personal record of transactions that reached financial close. Thorough working knowledge of project finance across more than one sector, and the exposure to know which structures a given lender will entertain.

The distinguishing quality is influence. This role does not command lenders or sponsors; it persuades both, often in opposite directions, and holds a transaction together while it does so. Candidates should be able to describe a mandate that closed because of a relationship they personally held, and one that did not close because they judged it should not.

Comfort operating without institutional scaffolding matters. There is no established desk, brand credit line or inherited syndicate to lean on in the early period.

Non-negotiables

Demonstrable closure history in Indian debt syndication, not solely advisory or origination. Working relationships at senior levels within the lending system that the candidate can evidence without breaching confidence. Willingness to be based in Mumbai and to travel for lender and sponsor engagement.

Ownership of a profit and loss, or credible evidence of having run a book to a plan.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹2.0–3.0 crore, with a performance variable on top. Position within that band reflects closure history and the depth of lender relationships the appointee brings, not years served.

The variable component is weighted toward transactions reaching financial close rather than mandates signed. Candidates should establish early how fee realisation is measured, over what period, and what happens to the variable when a sanction lands in one financial year and disburses in the next — that boundary decides more of the outcome here than the headline band does.

Confidentiality

The sponsoring group is not named at this stage. Detailed information follows identity, conflict and confidentiality review. Applicants must not approach lenders, sponsors or intermediaries to identify the enterprise.