Area Head - Gold Loan

Role overview

This position leads the area-level gold loan business across branches, translating regional plans into execution on the ground. The role is accountable for growth, profitability, portfolio health, branch expansion, and regulatory adherence while guiding multiple branch heads and distributed teams.

Business context

The hiring organization is a major diversified non-deposit-taking NBFC registered with RBI and operating across India with a large lending book and multiple secured and unsecured lending offerings. The gold loan business is positioned as a developing vertical that requires disciplined scaling, strong governance, and careful risk control.

Job purpose

The Area Head is expected to steer the gold loan business in the assigned geography by driving business momentum, quality of assets, and operational control. The position must balance aggressive expansion with strict compliance, portfolio monitoring, and profitable performance.

Key responsibilities

Lead the execution of regional gold loan strategy at area level and ensure achievement of targets for AUM, disbursements, P&L, branch growth, and compliance. Build and manage relationships with enabling functions and regional stakeholders, oversee branch head teams, and set manpower and productivity benchmarks aligned to the national direction.

Scope and dimensions

• Develop and maintain new relationships with internal enabling teams and regional stakeholders to support business launch and growth.
• Manage a team comprising multiple branch heads and distributed branch operations across the area.
• Define area business plans, staffing structure, and productivity targets in line with national strategy.
• Ensure adherence to all regulatory and internal compliance requirements.
• Track portfolio performance and market developments to support timely business decisions.

Key challenges

• Growing AUM quickly while protecting asset quality, maintaining LTV discipline, and limiting NPAs in a volatile gold-price environment.
• Keeping branch operations fully aligned with RBO and policy requirements across a wide branch network without slowing business throughput.
• Reducing risks related to fraud, metal substitution, internal misuse, and security lapses while scaling operations.
• Improving performance in weaker branches and managing fixed costs in a high-volume, low-ticket business model.
• Delivering a transparent, fast, and respectful customer journey for a product that is often emotionally sensitive for customers.

Success measures

• AUM growth year on year and quarter on quarter.
• Disbursement value versus plan.
• Growth in active customers and market share in key geographies.
• Average ticket size and mix between new and renewal loans.
• Net interest margin, yield, cost-to-income ratio, operating profit, and return metrics.
• GNPA, NNPA, SMA levels, auction loss, fraud incidence, recovery rates, and LTV adherence.
• Branch count expansion, break-even timing for new branches, AUM per branch, and improvement in low-performing branches.
• Sales productivity, acquisition cost, conversion ratio, repeat business, and cross-sell performance.
• Audit outcomes, policy deviations, purity-testing compliance, documentation accuracy, and zero-tolerance breaches.
• Attrition, role-fill timelines, succession readiness, training coverage, and post-training productivity gains.

Direct reports

The role is expected to oversee Branch Managers for Gold Loan. In the absence of a Branch Manager, the position may also oversee the Manager Gold Valuation, Gold Loan Officer, and Customer Service Executive.

Key relationships

• IT team: Weekly or fortnightly coordination for website updates, online initiatives, staff technology training, and back-end support.
• Marketing team: Weekly or fortnightly discussion on lead generation, promotions, and web-based campaigns.
• Risk, policy, audit, compliance, HR and other support teams: Weekly or as needed engagement on business, product, and people requirements.
• Customers: Need-based interaction for feedback, complaint resolution, and escalation handling.
• Channel partners and investment banks: Need-based engagement on product promotion, funding trends, and market insights.
• Vendors: Need-based discussions for new product ideas, negotiations, value propositions, and support for marketing or training.

Additional information

Business: Financial Services. Unit: Aditya Birla Capital Limited. Location reference in the source spans branches across India. The job record also refers to Kolkata in the title. The source notes that the JD should be updated with business, unit, location, position, reporting line, and date of update, but no specific update date or reporting-to designation is provided.

Notes from the source

No salary, stipend, bonus, number of vacancies, notice period, or start date were specified in the source. No explicit education requirement, experience range, or internship details were provided.