The client is a fast-growing European CRAMS major, which had established its Indian presence by acquiring two local Indian promoter entities and financially merging them. The merger was still at the financial level, with the operating entities largely independent and led by the respective erstwhile promoters and reporting directly to the European HQ. They had recently hired an Indian CEO to operationally integrate the two entities and create a unified organization. The CFO was expected to accelerate the integration, provide one version of the truth and assure the HQ about the robustness of results/decisions coming out of India.

The hiring was led by the Global HQ and the client desired to hire a CFO from the pharma world, with adequate exposure and experience in pharma manufacturing. Given the stakeholder management complexity, the preference was for someone who had high EQ and emotional resilience, and a good handle on the entire range of finance functions.