Gladwin International & Company
Website:
gladwininternational.com
Job details:
Company: Confidential Series A financial-services technology company
Board location: Gurugram, with periodic operating reviews in Mumbai and Bengaluru
Appointment: Non-Executive Director
Expected commitment: 24–30 days annually, including Board preparation, committee work, regulatory and risk workshops, and an annual strategy off-site
Board term: Initial three-year appointment, subject to the company’s constitutional documents, investor rights and applicable approvals
Compensation: Competitive annual Board retainer with meeting fees; a carefully structured long-term equity component may be considered subject to law, shareholder approval, independence expectations and conflict safeguards
The company
The company is building a financial operating platform for export-oriented small and mid-sized businesses. Its technology brings together cross-border collections, foreign-exchange execution, multi-currency cash visibility, invoice reconciliation, trade documentation and access to working-capital products delivered through regulated banking and lending partners.
Customers include technology-service exporters, digital agencies, specialist manufacturers, global marketplace sellers and professional-services firms that receive money from overseas buyers but remain underserved by traditional treasury infrastructure. The platform is intended to replace fragmented workflows involving bank portals, spreadsheets, email-based documentation, manual reconciliation and disconnected credit applications.
The business has completed a Series A financing round and is entering a more demanding stage of development. Transaction volumes are increasing, enterprise customers are requesting deeper integrations, and regulated partners expect stronger assurance over customer selection, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, data security and operational resilience. Management is also evaluating whether selected regulated activities should eventually be brought within the group rather than remaining entirely partner-led.
The Board opportunity
The company seeks a Non-Executive Director who can help turn a promising fintech product into a trusted financial institution without imposing large-company bureaucracy before it is useful. The appointee will bring judgement across regulation, risk, unit economics, partnerships, treasury, credit and organisational design.
This is an active working-board position. The successful candidate must be prepared to challenge founders and investors when transaction growth, valuation narratives or product velocity exceed the maturity of controls. Equally, the director must prevent risk management from becoming a sequence of blanket prohibitions that makes the platform commercially irrelevant to legitimate exporters.
The director will not act as an interim executive, arrange licences through personal relationships, introduce customers for a commission, select vendors or approve individual transactions. Management owns execution. The Board sets risk appetite, approves strategic boundaries, tests evidence, protects the company and its stakeholders, and holds executives accountable for outcomes.
Strategic mandate
1. Decide the company’s regulated operating model
Lead a Board-level assessment of which activities the company performs as a technology provider, agent, programme manager, outsourced service provider or regulated principal. Require a product-by-product map of legal entity, customer contract, regulated partner, movement of funds, data controller, complaint owner, revenue source and residual liability.
Challenge the strategic case for acquiring or applying for licences. A licence must not be pursued merely because it improves the fundraising story or apparent control of economics. The Board should understand the capital, governance, compliance, localisation, audit, reporting and management obligations created by each route, as well as the consequences of remaining partner-dependent.
2. Build risk appetite around customer and transaction reality
Establish a risk appetite that distinguishes acceptable exporter segments, countries, currencies, buyer types, transaction purposes and settlement structures. Limits should address customer concentration, corridor exposure, regulated-partner dependence, manual review capacity, payment returns, fraud losses, credit exposure and operational outages.
Require management to define which customers and transaction patterns the company will not serve, even when technically lawful. Exceptions must have named authority, duration, evidence and retrospective review. Commercial teams must not be able to convert repeated exceptions into an undocumented change of strategy
3. Strengthen customer due diligence and financial-crime controls
Oversee a proportionate framework for customer identification, beneficial ownership, business-model verification, source and purpose of funds, expected activity, sanctions, politically exposed persons, adverse media and ongoing monitoring.
The control system must recognise risks particular to cross-border SME activity: fabricated invoices, circular trade, third-party payments, over- or under-invoicing, merchant misclassification, shell buyers, mule accounts, prohibited goods, dual-use products, tax evasion and attempts to disguise capital flows as service exports.
Ensure that alert rules, case queues, escalation, account restriction and suspicious-activity decisions remain effective as volume increases. Automation should improve detection and evidence; it must not create false comfort through high alert closure rates.
4. Govern the complete movement and safeguarding of money
Require an end-to-end daily view of customer funds from payer initiation through correspondent or partner banks, conversion, fees, settlement, return and final reconciliation. Management must identify every point at which money can be delayed, misdirected, frozen, duplicated, netted, returned or become unreconciled.
Set strict expectations for safeguarding structures, settlement accounts, maker-checker controls, beneficiary changes, suspense balances, aged reconciling items and access privileges. Customer money, operating cash, partner settlement funds and credit proceeds must never become economically or operationally indistinguishable.
5. Make foreign-exchange economics transparent
Examine how rates, spreads, partner fees, hedging costs, timing differences, cancellations and refunds affect customer pricing and company margin. The Board must understand whether revenue is earned for technology, execution, distribution, float, credit referral or market risk.
Require controls preventing undisclosed discretionary pricing, inappropriate dealer behaviour, unauthorised positions or selective customer treatment. Any treasury exposure retained by the company must have approved limits, independent measurement, escalation and stress testing.
6. Govern partner-originated working capital
Establish clear responsibility among the company, lender, bank, data provider and collection agent for underwriting, customer communication, disbursement, monitoring, restructuring, collections and grievances. The product should not be presented as the company’s own credit where a partner is the regulated lender, nor should contractual outsourcing obscure the company’s conduct obligations.
Challenge underwriting models using invoice history, bank flows, tax data, buyer behaviour and platform transactions. Require evidence on data quality, consent, stability, overrides, fraud vulnerability, cohort performance and adverse selection. Growth should be monitored by vintage, risk grade, sector, buyer, geography and acquisition channel—not only disbursement.
7. Protect customers through fair product and conduct design
Review customer journeys for pricing clarity, exchange-rate disclosure, consent, documentation, failed transactions, account restrictions, refunds, credit terms and complaints. Customers must understand what the company provides, which regulated entity performs each service, how long funds may take, what can cause a hold and where remediation is available.
Set standards for sales incentives, relationship-manager discretion, partner commissions and renewal targets. Revenue pressure must not reward concealment of total cost, unsuitable credit, document manipulation or escalation avoidance.
8. Build reliable unit economics
Require cohort economics by customer segment and product after banking fees, foreign-exchange cost, compliance review, support, technology usage, fraud, losses, partner share, incentives and cost of capital. Gross transaction value and payment volume must not substitute for revenue quality or contribution.
Distinguish contractual recurring revenue from activity-dependent revenue, promotional pricing and one-time integration income. Establish clear thresholds for customer acquisition, enterprise customisation and country expansion. Large customers that generate volume but consume disproportionate compliance, support or pricing concessions must be visible to the Board.
Learn about the complete job profile before application:
Candidate profile
Essential experience
- Former bank, payments, foreign-exchange, trade-finance, lending or regulated-fintech CEO, COO, CRO, compliance leader, business head or experienced Non-Executive Director.
- Enterprise-level responsibility for financial risk, regulated partnerships, customer conduct or technology-enabled financial operations.
- Direct experience navigating a material control failure, regulatory examination, partner disruption, credit deterioration or financial-crime event.
- Ability to understand transaction flows, balance-sheet exposure, unit economics, customer data and technology risk without becoming a shadow executive.
- Demonstrated judgement in an early-stage or high-growth environment where information is incomplete and institutional capability is still being built.
- The confidence to challenge founders, investors and major commercial partners while preserving trust and decision speed.
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