Chief Financial Officer – Transformation — Automotive-Chip Business

The mandate

An automotive-chip business has been nominated on multiple vehicle platforms, but production timing, volumes and content have shifted as customers revise vehicle programmes. Engineering and qualification spending continues while non-recurring payments, wafer commitments and forecast revenue no longer align. The board is creating a Chief Financial Officer – Transformation role to establish programme economics from design award through end-of-life supply.

Approximately 1,450 employees and material partners fall within the business. The CFO owns transformation finance, planning, control, cash, programme economics, commercial challenge and investment governance and reports to the Group Chief Executive and relevant board committee. Sales and engineering own customer and technical execution; finance must make their assumptions comparable and decision-ready.

A nomination is not a production forecast. The CFO will distinguish platform award, engineering release, component qualification, vehicle launch, build rate and content per vehicle. Each milestone changes probability and spend authority. Lifetime revenue should incorporate price-downs, yield curve, warranty, change cost and end-of-life obligations rather than multiply optimistic volume by current price.

Non-recurring engineering requires commercial discipline. Customer payments may cover only part of masks, qualification lots, software and applications effort. The finance leader will expose unrecovered customisation and support decisions to reprice, standardise, reuse or stop. Sunk engineering effort cannot justify further spend without an executable path.

Capacity and inventory commitments need gated evidence. Automotive customers expect continuity and may change schedules abruptly. The CFO will model wafer and packaging flexibility, buffer ownership, cancellation terms and obsolescence risk. Emergency supply protection should be funded consciously rather than hidden in excess inventory.

Quality and warranty consequence belongs in programme value. A field issue can create investigation, replacement and customer recovery far beyond unit cost. Provisions, insurance and contingent exposure must reflect technical evidence. Finance will never pressure quality to narrow a population for accounting convenience.

Foreign-exchange and long programme duration can erode apparently sound awards. Customer price-downs may be denominated differently from wafer, package and test cost, while prototype revenue arrives years before volume expense. The CFO will establish programme-level currency and escalation assumptions, using treasury instruments only against approved exposure rather than the full aspirational lifetime forecast.

Transformation reporting will distinguish avoided spend, delayed spend and recurring benefit. A cancelled mask set is not the same as permanent margin improvement; engineering moved to another programme is redeployment, not cash saving. Finance will reconcile initiative claims to ledger, capacity and customer economics so the board sees one value bridge.

Customer solvency and platform cancellation will be monitored after nomination, because a technically healthy programme can still lose its funding route. Credit exposure, tooling ownership and recoverable claims need contingency before work continues.

This is a planned new role supporting a broader transformation, not a replacement for the existing controller. The CFO will build programme-finance capability and define interfaces with group finance without duplicating statutory work.

What you will own

• Create milestone and probability-based economics for every major design win.
• Govern NRE, qualification, capacity, inventory and lifecycle commitments.
• Establish forecast, cash and margin bridges by customer programme.
• Challenge price-down, yield, warranty and end-of-life assumptions.
• Support contract change, recovery and portfolio prioritisation.
• Maintain control and board reporting throughout transformation.
• Validate benefits and prevent double counting across initiatives.
• Build commercial and programme-finance leadership.

The first 12 months

Within 60 days, reconstruct the largest programmes from nomination through lifetime cash, identify assumptions no longer supported by customer schedules and quantify unrecovered engineering. Establish interim approval for new capacity, masks and custom work. Present the board with stop, re-scope and recover choices.

By month six, deploy common programme economics and stage-gate finance, renegotiate priority commercial gaps and align external commitments to updated probabilities. Resolve material warranty and inventory assumptions and build a finance team embedded in customer programmes.

At twelve months, improve production-revenue forecast accuracy to within 12%, recover or avoid at least ₹180 crore of unsupported NRE and reduce unallocated programme inventory by 35%. Ninety-five per cent of new commitments should pass evidence gates. Portfolio margin should improve without provision release unsupported by quality outcomes.

What the board will measure

• Design-win value tied to vehicle and qualification evidence.
• Custom engineering funded by price, reuse or explicit strategy.
• Capacity and inventory scaled to programme probability.
• Warranty and lifecycle obligations included in investment decisions.
• Cash and margin forecasts trusted by engineering and commercial leaders.
• Transformation benefits reconciled once and sustained.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in semiconductor, automotive electronics or complex programme finance. You have owned design-to-production economics, customer contracts and capacity decisions. Corporate reporting without customer-programme authority will not meet the threshold.

Your prior scope should exceed ₹4,000 crore revenue or investment and include at least 1,000 employees and partners. Evidence must include a vehicle forecast you revised, NRE recovered and capacity or inventory avoided. Direct audit-committee communication and automotive quality literacy are expected.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹2.2–3.0 crore plus performance variable linked to programme value, cash, forecast accuracy, control and talent. This permanent onsite Noida role reports to the Group Chief Executive and relevant board committee and works alongside existing statutory finance. A planned start supports the transformation sequence.

Confidentiality

The business, customers, vehicle programmes, product roadmaps, economics and quality exposures remain confidential. More detail follows fit, conflicts and signed confidentiality. Applicants must not approach customers, suppliers or employees to infer the enterprise.