Arvog - Chief Strategy Officer

Chief Strategy Officer - NBFC
Company: Arvog | Finkurve Financial Services Limited
NSE: FINKURVE | BSE: 508954
Location: Mumbai
Experience: 15 - 22 years
Industry: NBFC / Banking / Retail Lending
About Arvog:
Arvog is the brand name of Finkurve Financial Services Limited, an RBI-registered, listed NBFC focused primarily on Gold Loans and retail lending. With an AUM of approximately 1,300 crore, Arvog is entering its next phase of institutional growth. Our ambition is to scale the organization by 5x-10x over the coming years, while strengthening our core Gold Loan franchise and progressively building additional retail-lending businesses to create a diversified financial-services platform.
Role Overview:
Arvog Finance is seeking an accomplished, commercially oriented and analytically strong Chief Strategy Officer to work closely with the Director and senior leadership in shaping and driving the next phase of the organizations growth. The company currently has an AUM of approximately 1,300 crores, predominantly comprising Gold Loans, with an ambition to build a significantly larger and more diversified lending platform over the medium term.
Strategic Mandate:
The CSO will act as a strategic partner to the Director, helping translate the organizations long-term ambition into clear strategic priorities, business plans and measurable initiatives. The role will focus on identifying growth opportunities, evaluating new products and markets, strengthening the portfolio mix, supporting strategic partnerships, driving transformation and providing fact-based insights for senior management decision-making.
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop and periodically refresh the enterprise strategy and multi-year growth roadmap in consultation with the Director and senior leadership.
- Translate strategic priorities into annual plans, strategic initiatives, milestones, ownership and measurable outcomes.
- Evaluate opportunities to scale the existing Gold Loan franchise/Branches while identifying adjacent Retail Assets, MSME, Secured Lending and other relevant opportunities.
- Assess new products, markets, customer segments and geographies using market attractiveness, competitive intensity, unit economics, risk-adjusted returns and strategic fit.
- Prepare business cases and financial models for major strategic initiatives and investment decisions.
- Track industry, regulatory, competitor and customer trends and convert insights into actionable recommendations.
- Support portfolio strategy, including product mix, geography, channel mix and growth priorities.
- Identify opportunities for strategic partnerships, co-lending, distribution alliances, technology partnerships and other ecosystem-led growth models.
- Support evaluation of potential M&A, investments or inorganic growth opportunities, including initial assessment, business case preparation and coordination with relevant stakeholders.
- Work with Business, Finance, Risk, Credit, Collections, Operations and Technology teams to ensure strategic initiatives are commercially viable and executable.
- Establish strategic dashboards and management information to track AUM growth, profitability, product performance, productivity, portfolio quality and progress of strategic initiatives.
- Conduct periodic reviews of strategic initiatives and highlight deviations, risks, dependencies and corrective actions to the Director.
- Drive cross-functional transformation projects that improve scalability, productivity, customer experience and operating leverage.
- Identify opportunities for technology and data-led improvements across sourcing, underwriting, portfolio monitoring, collections and customer engagement.
- Support organization-wide prioritization and resource allocation across strategic initiatives.

- Prepare presentations, analysis and recommendations for the Director, Board and other senior stakeholders as required.
Business & Portfolio Strategy:
- Develop a clear view of where Arvog Finance should compete and how it can differentiate.
- Assess the attractiveness and scalability of existing and prospective lending businesses.
- Develop product-level strategic theses covering target customers, proposition, pricing, distribution, economics and risk considerations.
- Identify cross-sell and customer lifetime-value opportunities across the lending portfolio.
- Support geographic expansion decisions based on market potential, competitive landscape, branch economics and portfolio performance.
- Benchmark business performance and strategic positioning against relevant NBFC and lending peers.
Strategic Planning & Performance Management:
- Build annual strategic plans and operating priorities in partnership with business leaders.
- Create clear KPIs and milestones for strategic initiatives.
- Monitor actual performance against strategic plans and identify areas requiring management intervention.
- Develop scenario analyses for growth, funding, profitability, portfolio mix and market conditions.
- Provide concise, decision-oriented insights rather than purely descriptive reporting.
Growth, Partnerships & New Opportunities:
- Identify and evaluate new business opportunities aligned with the companys risk appetite and capabilities.
- Assess potential strategic partnerships and distribution models.
- Support commercial evaluation and structuring of co-lending, embedded lending and other partnership opportunities where relevant.
- Build structured evaluation frameworks for new initiatives before significant capital or management bandwidth is committed.
- Support pilot-to-scale decisions and ensure successful initiatives have clear economics and execution roadmaps.
Transformation & Organizational Development:
- Lead or coordinate high-priority cross-functional strategic projects sponsored by the Director.
- Identify process, technology and organisational constraints that may limit scale.
- Work with functional leaders to develop transformation roadmaps and implementation plans.
- Support development of scalable operating models, governance mechanisms and performance-review frameworks.
- Encourage a data-driven and commercially disciplined approach to decision-making.
Governance & Stakeholder Management:
- Work closely with the Director and senior management on strategic and enterprise-level priorities.
- Ensure strategic recommendations appropriately consider regulatory, risk, financial and operational implications.
- Coordinate inputs from multiple functions and present clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.
- Maintain confidentiality and sound judgement when handling business-sensitive information.
- Build effective working relationships across Business, Finance, Risk, Credit, Operations, Technology and other functions.
Candidate Profile:
- 15 - 22 years of experience across NBFCs, banks, financial services, consulting, corporate strategy, business strategy, transformation or related environments.
- Experience in strategy, business planning, corporate development, management consulting, business leadership or a similar strategic role.
- Strong understanding of lending businesses, preferably including Gold Loans, Retail Assets, MSME Lending, Secured Lending or other asset-backed lending.
- Strong commercial understanding of AUM, disbursements, yields, margins, profitability, credit costs, asset quality and unit economics.
- Demonstrated experience in developing business cases, financial models, market assessments and strategic recommendations.
- Experience managing complex, cross-functional strategic projects from problem definition through execution.
- Strong analytical capability with the ability to interpret business data and convert it into actionable insights.
- Excellent communication, presentation and stakeholder-management skills.
- Ability to work closely with senior leadership and operate with high ownership, discretion and maturity.
Preferred Experience:
- Prior experience in a strategy or business leadership role within an NBFC or lending institution.
- Exposure to Gold Loans and/or diversified secured lending.
- Experience evaluating new products, markets, partnerships or inorganic opportunities.
- Experience in a promoter-led or professionally managed financial services organisation.
- Exposure to board-level or senior management presentations and strategic reviews.
- Experience with transformation, digital initiatives, operating-model redesign or performance improvement.
Leadership Competencies:
- Strategic and structured thinker with strong commercial judgement.
- Highly analytical and comfortable working with financial and operational data.
- Strong problem-solving and decision-making ability.
- Execution-oriented, with the ability to move from strategy to implementation.
- Strong influencing skills without relying solely on formal authority.
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, evolving organisation.
- High ownership, integrity and discretion.
- Clear and persuasive communication with senior stakeholders.
- Ability to challenge assumptions constructively and present fact-based recommendations.
Measures of Success:
- Clear and actionable strategic roadmap aligned with the organizations growth ambitions.
- Identification and successful progression of high-value growth and diversification opportunities.
- Improved quality and speed of strategic decision-making.
- Successful execution of priority cross-functional strategic initiatives.
- Creation of scalable frameworks for evaluating products, markets, partnerships and investments.
- Improved visibility of business performance and strategic KPIs for senior management.
- Meaningful contribution to AUM growth, portfolio diversification, profitability and long-term enterprise value.
- Strong alignment between strategy, business execution, risk considerations and organizational capability.
Role Context:
This is a high-impact enterprise strategy role reporting directly to the Director. The CSO is expected to operate as a trusted strategic partner, combining strong analytical thinking with commercial understanding and execution discipline.

The role is not intended to replace functional ownership of Business, Credit, Risk, Finance, Operations or Collections; instead, it will work across these functions to help the leadership team make better strategic decisions and execute priority initiatives effectively.