Job Description

About the role:
The Head of Digital Finance Hyderabad Hub leads a cross-functional team that plays a central role in advancing the Finance transformation agenda at Novartis. By combining strong people leadership with operational excellence and data-driven decision-making, this role builds a modern, product-oriented hub that improves how Finance operates and delivers value. The position offers a unique opportunity to shape a modern digital hub at the center of Finance transformation.

Key responsibilities

• Transform the current hub into a modern digital organization with a clear vision, scalable operating model, and execution roadmap aligned to the Finance transformation agenda.
• Lead people, culture, and capability building to develop a high-performing, multidisciplinary team and a future-ready organization.
• Build critical capabilities, strengthen the leadership bench, and ensure talent development and succession for key roles. Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and learning. Champion the shift from task-based execution to product- and outcome-based ways of working.
• Embed data and analytics at the core of how the hub operates, ensuring prioritization, process improvements, and resource allocation are evidence-based and outcome-oriented. Implement a data and analytics vision for the hub: define key metrics, dashboards, and reporting standards.
• Ensure that key decisions (prioritization, process changes, resource allocation) are backed by data and insights. Promote self-service analytics capabilities and data literacy across all profiles in the hub.
• Deliver operational excellence through a scalable service management model with clear quality standards, performance indicators, issue escalation, and continuous simplification and automation of processes.
• Implement continuous improvement frameworks (e.g., Lean, Agile, DevOps-inspired practices) to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and improve service reliability. Own the hub’s governance and prioritization model, ensuring resources are focused on the highest-value initiatives and that delivery commitments are transparent, measurable, and tied to business outcomes.
• Build trusted partnerships with Finance, IT, and business leaders, lead change adoption across stakeholders, and communicate progress, risks, and measurable impact in a transparent and structured way.
• Continuously evolve the hub by building strong cross-location partnerships, benchmarking best practices, and identifying opportunities to raise impact, efficiency, and innovation.
• Demonstrate an owner-like mindset by proactively surfacing areas of friction and improvement, constructively challenging the status quo, and driving timely, high-impact solutions.

Essential Requirements:

• Advanced degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Finance, Economics, Business Administration, Data Science, Operations Management, or a closely related discipline.
• 10+ years of leadership experience across digital product, operations, transformation, shared services, or global delivery environments, with a strong track record of building scalable organizations and delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Strong understanding of finance processes and stakeholder needs, ideally across controlling, FP&A, accounting, shared services, or digital finance transformation.
• Familiarity with analytics, automation, and digital product or service delivery ecosystems, with the ability to translate technology opportunities into practical business impact.
• Relevant certifications such as Agile/Scrum, Lean/Six Sigma, or BI/analytics are a plus.

Desirable Requirements:

• Proven experience leading organizational transformation and evolving teams toward product-, platform-, or outcome-based operating models.
• Strong analytical and data leadership capabilities, including defining meaningful KPIs, shaping performance reporting, and using data to drive decisions, prioritization, and resource allocation.
• Strong people leadership and talent development track record, with experience leading multidisciplinary teams, strengthening leadership capability, building succession pipelines, and fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and learning.
• Demonstrated ability to lead in global, cross-location environments and to build effective partnerships across geographies, cultures, and time zones.
• International experience, ideally through leading teams, programs, or business partnerships across multiple regions and cultures in a global enterprise environment.
• Strong executive presence and stakeholder leadership, with the ability to influence senior leaders, build trusted cross-functional partnerships, and lead organizational change and adoption in a complex global environment.

Skills Desired

Capital Allocation, Critical Thinking, Data Visualization, Employee Engagement, Insight Generation, Managing Ambiguity, Market Understanding, Process Optimization