Chief Technology Officer — Risk And Controls Estate

The mandate

A privately held bank must choose the architecture for its next growth phase. Deposit ambitions depend on onboarding, identity, customer data, transaction services and controls that currently span ageing and duplicated platforms. Engineering teams deliver local fixes, but reliability and control evidence suffer as dependencies multiply. The board needs a CTO who will fund a target architecture rather than prolong indecision.

The Chief Technology Officer will steward technology supporting approximately ₹51,700 crore in loans and deposits and lead about 875 employees and material partners. Scope includes architecture, engineering, developer platforms, reliability, technology controls, data interfaces, strategic suppliers and technical talent.

The architecture choice should begin with business and control capabilities. Common identity, customer data, workflow, monitoring and evidence may accelerate deposit propositions, yet forced centralisation can create critical concentration. The CTO will compare modernisation, replacement, encapsulation and retirement through customer, risk and lifecycle economics.

Engineering velocity requires stable boundaries and internal platforms. Teams need environments, automated testing, release paths and production ownership that reduce waiting and rework. Utilisation is not the objective; safe flow from decision to value is.

Reliability and control should be designed into shared services. The CTO will establish service levels, observability, recovery and evidence, including severe scenarios at transaction peaks. Temporary bridges require owners and expiry.

The funded plan must include migration, dual running, people and retirement. Supplier offerings need data, operability and exit rights. Succession should transfer architecture authority without restarting decisions.

Control technology should be treated as a product portfolio. Monitoring, access, workflow, case management and evidence services require named users, quality thresholds, service levels and accountable owners. New capability should remove legacy controls or manual work rather than sit beside them. The CTO will partner with risk leaders on outcomes while keeping technology accountable for engineering and operability.

Data architecture needs comparable rigour. Deposits, customers, transactions and control events should share authoritative identifiers and lineage, while access and retention reflect purpose. Migration criteria will cover reconciliation, privacy, history and downstream models. The target design must support growth volume and peak conditions without creating one untested failure point.

Technical talent strategy will map engineering, architecture and reliability roles to the target state. Succession will include decision history and relationships, not only documentation. Reward should recognise production ownership, simplification and development of others.

Architecture governance will be light but consequential. Principles should translate into approved patterns, measurable exceptions and named decision authorities. Teams need quick answers and a route to challenge standards when customer or control evidence changes. The CTO will review exceptions for recurring needs that merit a platform capability and for local choices that should end. Investment cases should include developer adoption and migration support, not assume publication changes behaviour.

Why this seat is open

This planned replacement includes an orderly incumbent handover over four to six months while the deposit-growth choice remains active.

What you will own

• Define and fund the target architecture and transition states.
• Steward technology supporting the ₹51,700 crore banking book.
• Improve engineering flow, quality, production ownership and reliability.
• Build shared control and data capabilities without unsafe concentration.
• Govern migration, dual running, rollback and legacy retirement.
• Reset strategic supplier economics and technical exit readiness.
• Lead 875 employees and partners with strong architecture succession.
• Present board choices in customer, risk, cost and timing terms.

The first 12 months

The first 90 days should reconcile capabilities, systems, dependencies, demand, incidents and cost. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to architecture, including deposit leaders, operations, risk, engineers and suppliers. Test target options, assess leaders and agree board decision gates.

Months four to nine should settle architecture, establish platform ownership and deliver one bounded migration or service improvement. Fill leadership gaps and stop work inconsistent with the target. The first value should appear in flow, reliability, capacity or a control improvement.

By year end, engineering velocity, reliability and a funded target architecture should be repeatable. Performance should stay within 10% of the approved case, with forecasts aligning capacity, cash, customer and workforce assumptions for three straight quarters. Priority architecture risks need independent closure evidence; no severe escalation may remain unresolved beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Delivery flow, release quality and production reliability.
• Architecture decisions translated into funded migration and retirement.
• Adoption and service of common data and control capabilities.
• Supplier dependency, lifecycle cost and exit readiness.
• Retention of nine in ten critical technical leaders and immediate cover for seven in ten direct roles.
• Quantified improvement in architecture coherence with named data ownership.

The person

You are a CTO, Engineering Executive or Architecture Leader with 22–28 years in regulated banking or a comparable platform business. You have made consequential architecture choices and carried production outcomes.

Your accountable book, budget, portfolio or P&L has been at least ₹30,000 crore, and you have led 625 or more people. You can evidence a funded target architecture whose velocity and reliability outcomes held for two reporting periods.

You can resist endless optionality, explain concentration and migration risk plainly and preserve valuable incumbent expertise through succession.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹3.2–4.6 crore plus performance variable and LTI. The permanent Chennai role is onsite and can accommodate notice up to six months.

Confidentiality

The bank, incumbent and architecture options remain confidential. Composite facts prevent identification.