Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Location: Bangalore / Mangalore or Manipal

Reports to: CEO, with a functional/dotted line to the Group CFO Office

Role Summary

The CFO will own the finance function of a fast-scaling FMCG business operating primarily through modern trade, e-commerce, and quick-commerce channels. This is a hands-on, build-oriented role: as much about installing robust processes, controls, and working-capital discipline as about reporting. The CFO is expected to be a true business partner to the CEO on unit economics, pricing, channel profitability, while ensuring clean books, timely compliance, and transparent reporting into the group.

Key Responsibilities

Financial planning & business partnering

- Own the annual operating plan, rolling forecasts, and monthly variance analysis and frame forward actions.

- Build and maintain SKU-, channel-, and customer-level contribution and profitability analytics; support pricing, promotion, and listing decisions with rigorous unit economics.

- Drive the path-to-breakeven agenda, including realistic BEP modelling.

Working capital & cash management

- Take end-to-end ownership of working capital - inventory, receivables, and payables - with particular focus on inventory ageing, warehouse controls, and write-off risk.

- Manage quick-commerce economics, including returns (RTV) dynamics, reconciliations with marketplace platforms (Amazon, Blinkit, and others), and cash-cycle optimisation.

- Prepare accurate cash-flow forecasts and manage funding requirements in coordination with the group.

Controls, systems & processes

- Strengthen the finance control environment; close process gaps across order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and inventory accounting.

- Drive SAP maturity - ensure master data integrity, correct transaction flows, and reliable month-end close.

- Establish standardised reconciliations across marketplaces, warehouses, and the general ledger.

Accounting, compliance & reporting

- Ensure books are maintained in accordance with Ind AS, with correct revenue recognition (including quick-commerce returns and variable consideration under Ind AS 115).

- Manage statutory compliance across GST, TDS, Companies Act, and other applicable regulations; own audit readiness and lead the statutory audit.

- Deliver timely, board-ready MIS and performance reviews to the CEO and the MTL Group CFO Office.

Governance & stakeholder management

- Serve as the primary finance interface with the group corporate finance function on reporting, investment oversight, and governance matters.

- Support fundraising, investor/lender interactions, and any strategic transactions as required.

Required Qualifications & Experience

- CA

- 10-15 years of progressive finance experience, with a meaningful portion in FMCG / consumer brands.

- Demonstrated experience in a high-growth or early-stage environment where the finance function had to be built rather than inherited.

- Strong working knowledge of e-commerce and quick-commerce channel economics and reconciliations.

- Hands-on command of Ind AS, GST, and statutory compliance.

- Proven ERP experience (SAP preferred), including driving process and system improvements.

Preferred Attributes

- Comfort operating in a resource-constrained, working-capital-tight environment.

- Strong analytical and modelling skills paired with commercial judgment.

- Ability to work within a group/holding-company structure and reconcile local agility with group governance standards.

- Bias for controls and clean data; low tolerance for reconciliation gaps.