Head of Finance

Aerchain; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 6,000,000 - 9,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Aerchain is hiring a Head of Finance in Bengaluru to build the finance function from the ground up and partner with the CEO. You will own operations, accounting close, cash flow, and reporting across entities in India, the Middle East, and North America.

You’ll lead AR/AP, ensure GST/TDS/compliance, manage audits end-to-end, and oversee legal and secretarial. Expect a demanding but high-growth environment with ownership and impact from day one.

Qualifications

• CA mandatory with-depth knowledge of IndAS and multi-entity compliance.
• Experience leading audits end-to-end and managing or working with audit firms.
• Ability to build processes, automate, and scale finance in a high-growth startup.

Responsibilities

• Own finance operations including month-end close, cash flow, and reporting across entities.
• Lead AR/AP, vendor payments, collections, and working capital management.
• Ensure statutory GST, TDS, direct tax compliance across geographies.
• Own end-to-end audits, auditor relationships, and timelines.
• Oversee legal and secretarial matters and contract risk management.
• Lead FP&A, budgeting, forecasting, and business partnering with leadership.
• Prepare board packs and communicate financial narrative to investors.
• Build, mentor, and scale the finance team with a lean, automated approach.

Skills

CA

IndAS

Audit management

Multi-entity accounting

AI in finance

Education

Chartered Accountant (CA)

Tools

ERP systems

Tax software

Job description

Head of Finance will be Aerchain's first senior finance hire; reporting directly to the Co-Founder & CEO. From day one, you will get into the details, understand the current state, and start building the processes and systems the business needs to scale.

As Aerchain grows into new geographies and new structures, new challenges will need to be built around. The mindset stays the same throughout.

What you’ll drive

Finance Operations

Full ownership of accounting, month-end close, cash flow management, and financial reporting across all entities. Multi-entity, multi-currency, across India, the Middle East, and North America.

AR and AP

You own the receivables and payables function. The AR/AP Manager who runs day-to-day execution under you. But the function is yours, and you stay close to collections, vendor payments, and working capital.

Compliance and Controls

Statutory compliance across all geographies with zero misses. GST, TDS, direct tax, and jurisdiction‑specific obligations. The compliance calendar is yours. No surprises.

Audits

Statutory audits driven end-to-end. Not coordinated, not supported. Driven. You own the data

room, the auditor relationship, and the timeline. The auditor does not drive the process. You do.

Legal and Secretarial

You oversee legal and secretarial. You are not expected to be a lawyer, but you should be able to read contracts, understand key risks, and manage legal counsel effectively. While the Legal and Secretarial Manager owns the day‑to‑day execution. Until then, you ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

FP&A and Business Partnering

Budgeting, forecasting, and business performance tracking. You sit in business discussions early, not after decisions are made. Finance here is not a reporting function. It is a decision support function.

Board and Investor Relations

• Prepare and present board packs.
• Own the financial narrative in board meetings.
• Communicate proactively with investors. Bad news reaches them with context and a point of view, not as a surprise.

External Partners and Advisors

You manage auditors, tax consultants, and financial advisors. You set the terms of engagement, drive the timelines, and review the outputs. External advisors support you. You do not depend on them.

Team Building

You hire and develop the finance team. You set the talent bar. You build a team that takes ownership of their parts of the function and does not depend on you for everything.

Who We Are Looking For

• At the core, you are a builder. Not someone who designs things on paper and delegates execution, but someone who gets into the work, understands it deeply, and builds it themselves first.
• Bring structure to environments that do not have it yet.
• Take full ownership of outcomes. When something is broken, it is your problem. When something is unclear, you bring clarity.
• You do not wait to be told what to do and you do not drop things midway.
• True partner to the CEO.
• Challenge decisions when you believe they are wrong. Use logic, not opinion.
• Know when to keep pushing and when to align.
• You are not a yes person and you are not a contrarian. You are someone who makes the business think better.
• Understand the business, not just the numbers.
• Know how sales cycles work, how customers behave, and how operational realities drive financial outcomes. Finance, for you, is a tool for making better business decisions, not just a compliance and reporting function.
• Have a practical AI mindset. You have already used technology to reduce manual work in finance. Not in theory. Actually done it.
• You think about building lean processes and automating aggressively because you understand that a small team can only operate at the required level if it builds smartly.

You’ll thrive here if

• Unclear situations do not slow you down, they give you something to fix.
• Worked in a high-growth startup before and understand the pace, the trade‑offs, and what it takes to keep things from breaking as the business scales.
• Comfortable being the only senior finance person in the room for an extended period.
• Move fast when speed matters and slow down when rigor matters. You know the difference.
• Build teams with a high bar & value competence and hustle and you are decisive when someone is not working out.
• Walk into a board meeting and own the room. Not just present slides, but hold your ground under pressure and come back with answers when you do not have them in the moment.

What We Need

• Qualification: CA is mandatory. This is non‑negotiable. The technical depth this role requires across IndAS, statutory audits, and multi‑jurisdiction compliance is not achievable without it.
• Experience: 10 Years. The ideal candidate has been a founder or has worked directly with a founder in a high‑growth startup. They have built something from scratch, not just managed what was already working.
• Technical Depth: Strong working knowledge of IndAS, statutory audits, GST, TDS, direct tax, and multi‑entity compliance. Comfortable with multi‑currency accounting. Has independently driven audits end‑to‑end.
• Can debug numbers at the ledger level. Not dependent on external consultants for core decisions. Prior experience managing or working with Big Four audit firms is preferred.