Mallika Lakshmanan

Of my 25+ years in the industry, the last 15 years of my experience have been in a CFO and Controllership positions, as part of Senior Management and partnering with business in each of the last 6 roles specifically from a strategic initiatives perspective.

My controllership experience started from 2005 where I was the Controller for the India Global development center of BearingPoint (erstwhile KPMG Consulting).  This experience was in the consulting services and from here I moved to Metro Cash & Carry, India in 2009 and was here until 2017.  My experience (until August ‘22) was with Frappe Technologies, a made in India, FOSS ERP software start-up as CFO of the company.  Prior to this I was the CFO and Director for a medical tourism based startup called V B Health and with Samar Retail (a Barbeque Nation group company) and Sapphire Foods (a franchisee of KFC and PizzaHut) in India and SriLanka. 

Am currently working as Head of Finance with Curefoods India Pvt. Ltd., a food tech start up with Series C Funding.  This experience has been in the growth phase of the startup while preparing it for a public listing over a 3 year horizon involving setting up and growing the finance team at a group level for 10 subsidiaries and the holding company.  My role also involved strategic finance initiatives implemented at a group level and also working as part of the management to chalk out group level strategies and driving profitability for the group.

Have handled mergers and acquisitions of multiple brands and businesses at Curefoods and of franchises into 1 major company (Sapphire), acquisition of business (brand Toscano) into Samar Retail and sale of business to another group company; was awarded the Roll of Honour as top 100 CFOs in India (2018) under the Mergers and Acquisitions category for successful merger (Sapphire).

Have successfully been part of senior management handling Corporate Headquarters interactions with Business Leaders, nominee Directors on Boards from PE/VC partners and working with founders and Owners.

Have been part of Supply Chain finance, Sourcing finance, Project finance, site Controlling or country finance manager, keeping in mind the ambition to move up the value stream.  Have been contributing and actively participating and driving initiatives on various projects, expansions and strategic implementations (Metro – Cost Optimisation; Marketing Initiatives tracking and controls project; Onesta – Sales strategy and tie-ups from a finance perspective; Sapphire – part of the BD Council (MD, Business leader, Projects head, Finance Head) – to decide on store sites in terms of feasibility; V B Health – working with Co-founder and Sales Director on new verticals strategy – Hyperlocal)

Willingness and capacity to go deep into selected matters; drill-down into a specific issue until full resolution especially on country specific issues.  Eye for data and analytics - share insights with business teams/ innovation are my strengths.

Have seen growth and sustainability phases of business (Profitability). Have worked with multi cultural teams in US, China, Germany, Ireland and UK.

My working experience, educational background as well as my skills can be found in my profile. 

My controllership experience started from 2005 where I was the Controller for the India Global development center of BearingPoint (erstwhile KPMG Consulting).  This experience was in the consulting services and from here I moved to Metro Cash & Carry, India in 2009 and was here until 2017.  My experience (until August ‘22) was with Frappe Technologies, a made in India, FOSS ERP software start-up as CFO of the company.  Prior to this I was the CFO and Director for a medical tourism based startup called V B Health and with Samar Retail (a Barbeque Nation group company) and Sapphire Foods (a franchisee of KFC and PizzaHut) in India and SriLanka. 

Am currently working as Head of Finance with Curefoods India Pvt. Ltd., a food tech start up with Series C Funding.  This experience has been in the growth phase of the startup while preparing it for a public listing over a 3 year horizon. 

CPA (US)

MBA (Finance & Marketing)

B.Com