Chief Risk Officer — Commercial-Vehicle Platform

The mandate

An electric commercial-vehicle portfolio is moving from pilots to fleet commitments across duty cycles that place different demands on battery, charging and service. Risk assessments remain programme-based, while shared cells, software, charging partners and recovery processes create aggregate exposure. The board has created an urgent CRO role before larger fleet contracts and capacity commitments are signed.

The Chief Risk Officer will hold independent authority across approximately 1,000 employees and material partners and a platform perimeter near ₹5,100 crore. Scope includes product, battery, charging, supplier, operational, technology, data, fleet and transition risk. Engineering, quality and commercial leaders remain first-line owners. The CRO aggregates exposure, challenges acceptance and has direct access to the relevant board committee.

Commercial vehicles require duty-cycle evidence. Range, degradation and charging assumptions can be valid for one route and unsafe or uneconomic for another. Risk governance must connect customer use, payload, climate, charger access, service and residual value rather than approve a generic vehicle case.

Long-life obligations matter. Battery repair, second life, recall, software support and emergency response can continue after initial contracts. The CRO must ensure contracts and provisions do not outpace operational capability or transfer risk invisibly to fleets and dealers.

Why this seat is open

The scale-up exposed an enterprise risk gap outside the approved organisation plan. This is urgent, unplanned new hiring with no predecessor. Interim committees can review individual launches but cannot own aggregate fleet and supplier exposure. The board seeks appointment before the next contracting gate.

What you will own

• Set risk appetite and acceptance across electric vehicle, battery, charging and fleet propositions.
• Aggregate dependency across cells, software, suppliers, chargers and service networks.
• Challenge duty-cycle, degradation, residual and uptime assumptions.
• Establish evidence gates for fleet contracts, launches and capacity investments.
• Govern battery incident, recall, recovery and customer communication scenarios.
• Review long-tail service, data, cyber and end-of-life obligations.
• Build independent reporting from primary quality, field and supplier evidence.
• Develop successors across product, operational and technology risk.

The risk architecture will connect each fleet promise to evidence. A route model will identify payload, gradient, temperature, dwell time, auxiliary load, charger access and driver behaviour, then show the confidence range around energy use and degradation. Contract approval will specify which conditions have been tested, which remain assumptions and what changes if the customer’s operation moves outside them. Residual-value and uptime commitments must reflect battery ageing, software support and service coverage rather than an optimistic catalogue specification.

Concentration analysis will look beyond named suppliers to shared cell chemistry, control software, cloud services, diagnostic equipment and charging contractors. The CRO will require severe-but-plausible exercises for thermal events, charger failure, corrupted updates and prolonged component shortage, including authority for vehicle containment and customer communication. Evidence from near misses, warranty claims and fleet telemetry will reach an independent risk view without management filtering. Exceptions will expire and return for fresh acceptance; repeated waivers will trigger a design, contract or capacity decision.

Board reporting should distinguish inherent exposure, control effectiveness and accepted residual risk. The CRO will state where data is insufficient rather than converting uncertainty into a reassuring score. Post-event review will test assumptions and incentives, not only procedural compliance. Risk leaders embedded in programmes will have protected escalation to the centre, while first-line executives remain accountable for remediation and customer consequence.

The first 12 months

The first 60 days will identify the highest-consequence fleet, battery and charging exposures and review pending commitments. By day 90, the board will receive a portfolio risk map, interim acceptance rules and decisions requiring additional evidence or containment.

By month eight, two contrasting fleet propositions should complete duty-cycle and incident testing, critical charging and battery dependencies should have recovery decisions and contract gates should reflect residual obligations.

At year-end, all material fleet propositions should have approved risk profiles, high-risk exceptions reduce by 70% and severe action closure exceed 90%. Battery and charging response must meet tested objectives, with no material safety or customer exposure caused by unsupported duty-cycle assumptions.

What the board will measure

• Risk decisions changing contracts, launches and capital before exposure scales.
• Duty-cycle and fleet evidence replacing generic electric assumptions.
• Battery and charging recovery tested realistically.
• Long-life obligations owned and funded.
• Independent risk capability and succession.

The person

You are a CRO, product-risk or electric-vehicle safety executive who has governed high-consequence fleet or energy products. You understand battery and charging systems sufficiently to challenge claims without taking engineering accountability. Commercial-vehicle, automotive, battery or critical-energy experience is relevant.

You bring 22–28 years of experience and have held independent risk authority above ₹2,900 crore across 700 employees or more. The committee will examine a fleet contract you conditioned, a duty-cycle assumption you rejected and an incident exercise that changed design or service.

The role is onsite in Sanand with fleet, supplier and charging-site travel.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹2.2–3.0 crore plus performance variable. Measures include exposure reduction, tested recovery, contract quality, independence and succession. Lack of incidents alone is not performance. Final terms reflect current mix and risk scope.

Confidentiality

The vehicle platform, fleets, batteries, partners and risk evidence are confidential. Further information follows qualification and an undertaking. Sanand and the rounded perimeter are not identifying information.