Portfolio Group Chief Financial Officer — Automotive and Mobility Platforms

The mandate

Four automotive and mobility platforms share a holding owner but use capital in fundamentally different ways. Component manufacturing needs tooling and production readiness before customer programmes generate cash; distribution carries financed inventory; service platforms depend on recurring customer activity. The portfolio group CFO will own the financial trade-offs across these businesses, ensuring that capital is allocated with a complete understanding of each platform's obligations and is not moved casually between subsidiaries to support the most confident growth narrative.

The appointment offers open-ended employment. Its initial twenty-four-month agenda combines a portfolio capital framework, stronger subsidiary governance and a financing plan for selected acquisitions and organic investment. Sixty-four professionals work through four platform CFOs and the holding team. Delhi NCR is the base, with scheduled investment and operating reviews. Subsidiary executives retain business execution, while the new chief holds the broader portfolio financial authority needed to compare opportunities across the platforms.

The CFO may set group finance standards, recommend portfolio capital priorities and release approved funding subject to documented conditions. New acquisitions, material guarantees, shareholder transactions and commitments beyond approved investment envelopes require holding-board approval. Technical product validation and vehicle safety remain specialist responsibilities. Finance should expose the cost of programme delay, warranty exposure and inventory support without claiming that an attractive forecast establishes manufacturing capability or commercial demand.

The board wants a portfolio whose reported returns reflect the capital genuinely tied up in customer programmes and subsidiary support. Acquisitions should be assessed for funding, ownership and integration exposure before transaction enthusiasm becomes an irreversible commitment. The remit excludes engineering design, dealer network appointment and speculative trading in automotive commodities. Continuing accountability includes consolidated accounts, debt and equity planning, investor financial communication and the quality of decisions taken by the platform finance leaders after the initial capital programme has been established.

What you will own

• Establish a portfolio capital book covering tooling, customer programmes, distribution inventory and service investment, reconciling committed and recoverable amounts so the board can compare capital intensity rather than only reported operating margin.
• Decide funded priorities within the approved portfolio envelope, documenting which subsidiary receives capital, what evidence precedes release and how a delayed programme or weaker customer demand changes subsequent funding decisions.
• Lead acquisition financial assessment across valuation, debt, contingent obligations and integration funding, ensuring proposed synergies do not obscure cash commitments or ownership conditions that directors must judge before approving a transaction.
• Govern subsidiary finance through the platform CFOs, preserving legal and shareholder boundaries while requiring consistent consolidation evidence, material judgement escalation and transparent reporting of support received from the holding company.
• Negotiate debt and equity alternatives with capital providers, presenting maturity, dilution, guarantee and covenant consequences alongside funding availability and the downside effect of simultaneous automotive programme delays.
• Present portfolio performance through capital employed, cash conversion and verified investment outcomes, distinguishing sustainable returns from temporary working-capital release or a favourable measurement point in the production cycle.
• Build a strong platform CFO forum that resolves competing assumptions, develops succession and brings emerging investment risks to the holding board early enough for a real choice rather than an emergency funding request.

Candidate qualifications

• Bring a 22–28-year finance career with prior group CFO or substantial multi-business finance-chief responsibility in automotive, manufacturing, retail or a diversified operating portfolio. Demonstrate personal ownership of capital allocation across businesses whose cash cycles differed materially. The role requires breadth beyond one company's accounts and enough operating judgement to challenge an investment whose attractive margin conceals disproportionate committed capital.
• Have led meaningful acquisitions through financial assessment, negotiation support and post-completion accountability. Explain a transaction where your recommendation changed because of contingent liabilities, funding structure or the credibility of integration benefits. Evidence should distinguish your decisions from adviser outputs and include an investment you revised or declined, not only the deals that ultimately completed.
• Demonstrate substantial debt and equity raising experience with reliable financial models, investor communication and board decision records. A recognised accounting or management-accounting qualification is expected, supported by applied reporting knowledge. You must work effectively with legal, tax and engineering specialists while retaining responsibility for the financial conclusion and making the limits of available technical evidence explicit.
• Have led subsidiary CFOs or senior finance managers through conflicting capital priorities, preserving independent controls and constructive executive relationships. Describe how you prevented a profitable business from becoming an unexamined source of support for another platform. The appointment requires discretion around transactions, direct operating engagement and the ability to explain uncomfortable funding constraints clearly to directors and capital providers.

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 8 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-225.