Independent Director

Balance-sheet context

The company finances productive equipment used by enterprises and owner-operators. Credit performance depends on borrower cash generation, asset use, equipment condition, documentation, insurance, service support, secondary-market value and the lender's ability to intervene early. Security is useful only when title is valid, location is known, condition is preserved and enforcement can produce economic recovery.

The business is preparing for a potential public listing and seeks a finance-led Independent Director to strengthen asset-quality recognition, expected-loss governance, treasury, liability management, income integrity and recovery economics. The appointee must challenge growth that relies on optimistic residual value, repeated refinancing, delayed delinquency recognition or liabilities that mature faster than assets can generate cash.

Balance-sheet responsibilities

1. Credit architecture and risk appetite. Define appetite by borrower type, asset, geography, use, vendor, tenor, advance rate and repayment structure. Exceptions should be visible in aggregate and evaluated for correlated risk.
2. Underwriting cash and asset together. Test business cash flow, promoter contribution, bank conduct, asset suitability, utilisation plan, invoice authenticity, vendor relationships, service availability and realistic downside recovery.
3. Early-warning and staging discipline. Monitor payment behaviour, account turnover, asset inactivity, insurance lapse, location exceptions, tax or legal signals, dealer intelligence and restructuring. Cure definitions should require sustained evidence rather than a single payment.
4. Expected credit loss and provisioning. Challenge probability, recovery timing, repossession cost, legal delay, asset condition, market depth, concentration and management overlays. Model outputs require back-testing and independent approval of overrides.
5. Income and fee integrity. Review interest accrual on stressed accounts, overdue charges, origination fees, insurance or service income, rebates, foreclosure, restructuring and modification. Accounting should not create yield from uncertainty.
6. Asset–liability management. Examine contractual and behavioural gaps, concentration by lender and instrument, encumbered assets, liquidity buffers, covenant headroom, interest-rate exposure and stress under collection disruption or refinancing closure.
7. Recovery, repossession and sale conduct. Govern customer communication, agent behaviour, authorisation, asset custody, condition, valuation, auction or sale, proceeds, shortfall and grievance. Recovery economics should include all time and cost, and never justify coercion.
8. IPO-grade Finance Function. Strengthen close, data lineage, regulatory returns, treasury segregation, related parties, internal financial controls, model governance, whistle-blower access and consistency between offer disclosures and Board information.

Audit and risk decisions

The Director will contribute to risk appetite, pricing, sector limits, vendor programmes, co-lending or assignment, restructuring policy, write-offs, large exposures, provisioning overlays, liability raising, securitisation, capital adequacy, dividend and IPO readiness.

For each growth programme, the Board should see collected risk-adjusted return after credit cost, operating effort, funding, insurance, repossession and capital consumption. For each liability decision, management should show refinancing dependency, covenants, collateral, early-amortisation risk and liquidity under severe but plausible collection stress.

Finance and credit evidence

The Board pack should include disbursement quality; approval exceptions; dealer and asset concentration; first-payment default; arrears migration; cures; restructures; stage movement; provision coverage; model versus realised recovery; asset location; insurance exceptions; repossession age; sale loss; accrued income on stress; funding gaps; cost of funds; liquidity buffer; covenant headroom; audit issues; and IPO remediation.

Internal audit should trace selected loans from sourcing through vendor payment, asset verification, income, delinquency, collection and recovery. Independent assurance should test model data, overrides, restructuring, repossessed assets, auctions, customer complaints, treasury and regulatory reporting.

Candidate profile

Candidates should have at least 25 years of senior experience across NBFCs, banking, equipment or vehicle finance, secured lending, treasury, credit risk, audit, controllership or regulated financial-company boards. Suitable candidates may include former CFOs, chief risk officers, credit heads, treasury leaders, audit partners, recovery-governance leaders or Audit Committee Chairs.

The candidate must understand both accounting and the physical asset supporting credit. Experience with expected-loss models, ALM, securitisation, collections, regulatory reporting, public-market readiness or balance-sheet stress will be highly relevant.