Director, India GCC - Shared Services (Founding Role)

InCommon · India

The opportunity

A publicly-listed (Nasdaq), US-headquartered firm operating at the intersection of digital assets and data-centre infrastructure - is establishing its first India office in Mumbai (BKC), and is looking for the person to build the non-technology side of it from the ground up.

Often described as "the Goldman Sachs of digital assets," the firm serves institutional clients across trading, asset management, advisory, and custody — this is institutional-grade financial services, built for institutions rather than a retail consumer app.

The company has a market cap of roughly $8 billion and 500+ employees globally, across offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. India is set to become one of its most important hubs — this role is central to that.

This is a founding leadership role. You will design the operating model, stand up processes from scratch, and build and lead the team that runs institutional-grade shared services out of India — finance & accounting operations, HR operations, compliance/legal operations, procurement & vendor management, and general operations — in close partnership with functional leaders in New York and across the firm's global offices.

It is a builder's mandate, not a caretaker's. You should be equally comfortable setting multi-year strategy and personally doing the first 90 days of work - writing the first process document, running the first reconciliation, sitting across from the first vendor.

Snapshot

Role: Director, India GCC — Shared Services

Location: Mumbai (BKC), India — on-site

Level: Director

Reports to: Deputy COO (global), with a dotted line to the Managing Director of the India entity

Team: Small at launch, scaling to a multi-function organisation over 6–12 months

Employer: The client's India entity

What you'll own

• Design and stand up the India-based shared services function — finance & accounting support, HR operations, compliance/legal operations, procurement & vendor management, facilities/admin, and general operations.
• Define the multi-year GCC roadmap — which functions and processes move to India, in what sequence, and with what governance and quality controls.
• Build the organisation from the ground up — write job descriptions, recruit, onboard, and develop a team across multiple functional pods as scope expands.
• Partner directly with global (New York-based) functional leads across Finance, HR, Legal, Compliance and Operations to map current-state processes, document them, and redesign them for a distributed delivery model.
• Establish the operating fabric — SLAs, quality metrics, and reporting cadences between the India centre and global stakeholders.
• Own day-to-day delivery personally in the early stages — this role requires doing the work, not just directing it, until the team is built out.
• Set up the centre's operational infrastructure — workspace, vendor relationships, local HR policies, and compliance with Indian labour and regulatory requirements, in coordination with Legal and People teams.
• Drive process improvement and automation as the function matures.
• Be the on-the-ground leader for India shared services — representing it in global planning and budget discussions.

What you'll bring

• 10+ years in shared services, GCC/GBS (Global Business Services), or business-operations leadership — with direct experience building a centre or function from an early stage, not just operating an established one.
• A proven track record of scaling a team — from a handful of people to a larger, multi-function organisation — including hiring, structuring, and developing managers.
• Breadth across non-technology corporate functions (finance operations, HR operations, procurement, compliance operations, or business operations) — deep expertise in at least one, working knowledge across several.
• Experience in a global, matrixed organisation — comfortable partnering with and influencing HQ-based stakeholders across time zones.
• A genuinely scrappy operating style — willing to personally build the first process document, run the first payroll reconciliation, or sit with a vendor, especially in the early phase.
• Strong process-design and documentation skills, with hands-on experience of SLA/KPI frameworks for shared-services delivery.
• Excellent written and verbal communication — able to synthesise and present to senior global leadership.
• Financial services, fintech, or digital-assets exposure is a plus, not a requirement — but comfort operating in a regulated, fast-evolving industry matters.

What success looks like

• First 90 days — functional scope prioritised and agreed with global stakeholders; first hires identified; foundational infrastructure (space, systems access, local compliance) in place.
• First 6 months — first one to two functional pods operational, with documented processes and SLAs; initial team hired and onboarded.
• First 12–24 months — a scaled, multi-function shared services organisation running independently, with strong stakeholder satisfaction and a clear roadmap for further expansion.

Why this role is rare

Most GCC leadership roles are about running a centre someone else built. This one is about building it — the operating model, the team, the culture, the standard — as the founding leader of a global firm's India presence, with direct line of sight to senior leadership in New York. If you've built once and want to build again, with real ownership and a clean sheet of paper, this is that role.