Chief Financial Officer – Transformation — Powertrain Division

The mandate

A Gurugram powertrain division must fund motors, power electronics and control capability while its combustion lines continue to generate cash and meet customer programmes. Volume plans show a smooth transition that neither regulation nor market adoption is likely to follow. Supplier tooling, plant depreciation and engineering capacity create fixed commitments across both technologies. The retiring transformation CFO has built the opening analysis; the successor must turn it into portfolio and cash decisions.

The Chief Financial Officer – Transformation will govern a capital and operating perimeter of approximately ₹5,400 crore affecting 2,150 employees and material partners. Scope includes portfolio finance, capital, manufacturing economics, asset impairment, working capital, supplier exposure, programme control and benefit assurance. The divisional controller retains routine close authority. This CFO owns the financial transition across powertrain technologies and advises the relevant board committee.

The assignment is not to accelerate electrification at any cost or maximise combustion harvest. The executive must establish scenario economics by platform and component, identify assets that remain adaptable, determine where dual running is justified and expose investments whose utilisation depends on implausible demand. Decisions should include closure, conversion, partnership and staged capacity options.

People and suppliers make the balance sheet incomplete. Skills may need investment before demand, while specialist suppliers can fail before an orderly run-off finishes. The CFO must bring retraining, retention, restructuring, contract and continuity costs into the case and distinguish cash avoidance from accounting movement.

Fiscal incentives and tax positions require their own decision discipline. Electric manufacturing support may depend on localisation, output, timing or continuing compliance, whereas converting or closing legacy assets can alter depreciation, indirect tax and transfer-pricing assumptions. The CFO will show investment economics both before and after conditional incentives, assign owners for qualification evidence and prevent a temporary benefit from justifying structurally weak capacity. Clawback and expiry scenarios must sit inside the board case.

Scenario ownership will be explicit: commercial leaders own demand, engineering owns maturity and manufacturing owns conversion assumptions. Finance will reconcile, challenge and preserve the history of each change so a favourable revision cannot appear without an accountable source.

Why this seat is open

The incumbent will retire after an agreed handover and remains in role during a planned four-to-six-month search. No performance or control issue drives the succession. The timing allows the new executive to influence the following capital cycle while testing the analysis independently rather than inheriting it as settled fact.

What you will own

• Build scenario economics across combustion, hybrid and electric powertrain components and platforms.
• Identify adaptable, constrained, surplus and stranded assets with explicit decision dates.
• Reallocate capital towards capabilities with credible demand and stage-gated learning.
• Govern impairment, restructuring, supplier and workforce transition evidence.
• Protect combustion cash and customer commitments without extending uneconomic variants by default.
• Establish benefit assurance for plant conversion, sourcing and electrification programmes.
• Create working-capital and inventory plans for uncertain run-off and ramp-up curves.
• Build a transition-finance team able to challenge engineering, manufacturing and procurement.

The first 12 months

The first 90 days will produce reconciled asset, programme, contract and demand scenarios. The CFO will identify decisions that cannot wait, establish downside triggers and submit a capital reallocation view to the board. Impairment and provision assumptions will be reviewed independently.

By month eight, at least two material asset choices should be contracted, weak electrification programmes resized or staged and combustion run-off plans linked to customer and supplier obligations. Working-capital interventions will target inventory at risk of obsolescence rather than broad reduction.

At year-end, at least ₹325 crore of capital should be redirected or avoided against the opening plan, transition cash forecast variance should be below 8% and at-risk inventory reduced by 20%. Customer continuity and safety must hold, with all material stranded-asset and restructuring exposures recognised or explicitly governed.

What the board will measure

• Capital movement before demand or technology uncertainty becomes sunk cost.
• Cash and asset transparency across overlapping powertrain cycles.
• Combustion obligations and electrification options managed without hidden cross-subsidy.
• Workforce and supplier transition consequences reflected in financial decisions.
• Successors and independent capability across transition finance.

The person

You are a transformation CFO, automotive divisional CFO or manufacturing-finance executive who has managed technology substitution and asset run-off. You can challenge engineering volume assumptions while respecting product and safety judgement. Relevant experience includes powertrain, components, industrial technology, energy equipment or another capital-intensive transition.

You bring 22–28 years of experience and have controlled at least ₹3,100 crore while influencing operations of 1,500 employees or more. The board will examine an asset you impaired or converted, a capital programme you staged and a legacy portfolio whose cash you protected without delaying necessary exit.

The position is onsite in Gurugram with travel to plants and suppliers.

Compensation and terms

The transformation CFO package provides ₹2.2–3.0 crore fixed and a performance variable. Measures will cover capital reallocation, cash, asset transparency, continuity and team depth. Accounting gains alone are not transition value. Final terms reflect current mix and the agreed transformation perimeter, subject to comprehensive diligence.

Confidentiality

The technologies, plants, suppliers, programmes and incumbent are withheld. Qualified candidates receive specific programme information after reciprocal interest is established under a confidentiality undertaking. The Gurugram location and approximate scale are not identifiers.