Purpose of this role: -

To lead the technology strategy, architecture, development and maintenance of the Clearing & Settlement, Member Interface, Collateral and Risk Management Systems.  This role is responsible for ensuring ultra-high resilience, driving technology modernization, and embedding emerging technologies (AI/ML, Blockchain, Tokenization) while managing a significant technology portfolio and budget. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES 

A. Technology Strategy & Modernization

i. Business Enablement: Partnering with business leaders to ensure security enables rather than it hinders—digital transformation, product development, and customer experience and other business strategies and goals.

ii. Ensure and Strengthen documentation of procedures & processes, technology architecture & design

iii. Oversee the high-level design of mission-critical systems, ensuring they are scalable, secure, and capable of handling high-volume, low-latency transaction processing (sub-millisecond latency). 

iv. Drive the modernization of legacy systems to cloud-native (AWS/GCP/Azure) and microservices architectures to enable agility.

v. Continuously stay up to date with the latest methodologies, emerging technologies (including AI, Blockchain, DLT etc.), and integrate these insights to the organisation’s context, delivering tangible business value and distinctive advantages. 

vi. Architect and scale DLT solutions for post-trade lifecycle management, private/permissioned networks, and smart contract infrastructure for derivatives and other instruments. 

vii. Design the technical stack for the tokenization of assets, integrating custody models (MPC/HSM) and on-chain settlement mechanisms.

viii. Champion agile methodologies and DevOps culture (CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code) to ensure rapid, iterative delivery of product features while maintaining stability.

ix. Ensure flawless execution of disaster recovery and business continuity plans, with near-zero recovery time objectives (RTOs).

x. Setting the vision and strategy for Application Development and Maintenance function working in conjunction with all other senior leadership within the organisation

B. Regulatory, Governance, and Risk Management: 

i. Provide inputs in formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies, programmes and activities. 

ii. Accountable for managing risks across all IT functions. This includes the design, implementation, and oversight of the Information Technology Risk Management Framework.

iii. Owns and manages technology operational risk arising from architecture, vendors and applications

iv. Manage all service level agreements with all stake holders and service providers. 

v. Manage and take ownership of the SDLC life cycle

vi. Maintain and manage close collaboration with all stakeholders in the environment 

vii. Develop and manage the technology department's budget, ensuring efficient resource allocation to achieve optimal value and impact.

viii. Contingency Planning, Decision Making & Risk management: Make sound and timely decisions in situations where information is ambiguous or incomplete or where there is limited time to undertake full analysis. Maintain objectivity and a sense of perspective in crisis

ix. As a specific KMP (Key Managerial Personnel) in Vertical 1 (Critical Operations), this role requires the ability to prioritize public interest (technological resilience and market integrity) over commercial considerations.

x. Responsible for vendor management and coordination including SLA, budgets, quality, resources etc working in the departments reporting to you 

xi. Continuous adherence to the regulatory requirements and provide regular reports to the head of the organization.

xii. Enable participation in all the audits covering the departments working with you and ensure that all the audit observations are resolved, mitigated and closed within the timelines. 

C. Risk Management, Compliance/ Assessment

i. Ensure that all applications are secure and compliant with all applicable regulations and cyber security related controls. 

ii. Implement zero-trust security architectures, robust identity management (SSO, Okta), and incident response mechanisms by default during the development lifecycle of the products developed. 

iii. Facilitate examination by various regulatory bodies.

iv. Liaise with internal and external auditors and regulators in reviewing special investigations results, internal audits, research studies, and forecasts to provide direction and guidance. 

D. Leadership & People Management

i. Leadership in bringing together collective MII committees to address issues of common interest, and to make representations to SEBI.

ii. Responsible for all the activities undertaken / performed by the team working under you

iii. Exercise oversight responsibility for the efficient and effective management of the human, material and financial resources of the Department. 

iv. Manage a cross functional team of in-house and outsourced partners. 

v. Attract, develop, and retain a high performing team to meet the current and evolving needs of the organisation through coaching, mentoring, and performance management to nurture technology talent and enhance capacity to deliver impactful results. 

vi. Offer technical guidance for optimizing and designing the organisation’s business process models and the architecture that supports them. 

vii. Effectively convey the technology vision to both Management and the employees of the organisation. 

viii. Ensure proper delegation of authority is done within the teams with proper backups at all levels within your teams

ix. Provide training to IT staff and other relevant stakeholders on New Technologies used / proposed to be used by NCL teams. Enable knowledge management framework for knowledge transfer and sharing in the organization and provide inputs & guidance on Technology to NCL team. 

x. Ensure proper delegation of authority is done within the teams with proper backups at all levels

*Additional responsibilities may be added from time to time depending on organisational / regulatory requirements.

Qualification & Experience 

a. Educational Qualifications:

• Essential: Bachelors / Masters degree in computer science, Engineering, or related technical field.

• Optional: MBA from a top-tier global institution or equivalent experience in technology-business strategy

b. Technical Skills:

Essential:  Aware of latest technology impact due to business / regulatory changes in the Capital Markets

c. Business Knowledge:

Knowledge in Capital Market Domain including Equity, Derivatives and Commodity Markets.

d. Total Experience:

20+ years

e. Relevant Years of Experience:

• Core experience of at least 7+ years in senior leadership roles (VP, SVP, EVP, or CTO level) within global capital markets, prime services, clearing, or custodial institutions
• Deep understanding of Cash Market, Derivatives, collateral management, settlement workflows, and regulatory reporting would be desirable

f. Technical & Functional Skills:

Desirable to have the following skills

• AI/ML: Practical experience deploying LLM/RAG systems, model governance, and secure data pipelines.

• Blockchain: Deep blockchain fundamentals (L1/L2, consensus mechanisms, DeFi), experience with DAML, Solidity, or Rust, and understanding of on-chain risk.

• Programming/Architecture: Hands-on experience with high-performance languages (Python/Go/Java) and modern cloud stacks (AWS/GCP, Terraform, Kubernetes).

Collaboration – Internal & External