Topic: Building Finance Partnerships with Other Functions

Speaker: Shri Neeraj Jain, Independent Director, Angel Investor, Ex CFO, J&J Medical India

Presentation:
a. Role of Finance with other functions: Collaboration for growth, governance and control
b. Success mantras - do's and don'ts
c. Boundaries and transparency
d. Challenges and solutions

Speaker’s bio:  
A rank holder Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary with over 30 years of management experience in finance, supply chain and business across diversified industries at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) in positions of increasing responsibility in India, ASEAN and Asia Pacific. He spent his formative years in management consulting at A F Fergusons. Neeraj’s key areas of expertise include strategic business partnering, process excellence, controllership, M&A, business reorganisation and talent development.

Since his retirement from J&J in 2020, Neeraj has been involved in angel investing as part of Vinners, a group of around 150 CXOs, which he had co-founded a few years back. He is also the founding director of the company that reviews and takes investment decisions and handles all administrative affairs of this group. 

Besides, Neeraj is an Independent Director and member/chair of one or more of Audit, Risk and NRC committees of:
1. Tata Trustee Co Pvt Ltd (since 05/21): this is the trustee company for Tata Mutual Fund and Tata Capital’s unlisted portfolio – Risk Committee Chair, Board/NRC/Audit committee member

2. Tata Pension Management Pvt Ltd (since 01/22): handles NPS subscriptions – Audit Committee Chair, Board/Risk committee member (ex Board chair in 23-24)

3. Radiowalla Network Ltd (since 10/23): a new age media company – Audit committee chair, Board/NRC/Stakeholder Relationship committee member

4. Growmax Agri Equipment Ltd (since 3/24): M&M group tractor mfg co – Board/Audit Committee/NRC member.

In addition, he is a board advisor in a healthcare company engaged in research.

At J&J Medical, Neeraj was the VP Finance/CFO in India. Over 13 years, he held various senior positions at J&J in Asia. Prior to J&J, he held positions of increasing responsibility over 17 years with HUL, the last being the General Manager, Commercial (Exports).

As an India Management Board member and a director on the board of the company that handled orthopaedics and as part of the APAC Finance Leadership at J&J, Neeraj led several strategic initiatives in business, finance and supply chain. Neeraj brought in the concept of finance business partnering at J&J Medical India, led process simplification and standardisation while driving compliance, brought operating costs down, transitioned in the acquired companies like Depuy Medical & Synthes in J&J, transitioned out several businesses while optimising results and remodelled the ASEAN countries to a BU structure. He also worked on a global strategic project to refine key business strategies relevant for next 25 years for J&J Medical globally.

At HUL, while growing up doing classical finance and supply chain roles, Neeraj worked on several M&A deals including TOMCO transition in early part of his career and divestment of seeds to a PE fund in the US, a business which he himself led. He also set up a joint venture between HUL and SC Johnson Inc where he managed finance, IT, procurement and HR. Later he reorganised the Exports business where he was also the board member of Ponds Exports Ltd.

Neeraj was awarded as one of the 100 most influential CFOs in India in 2016 by CImA. Earlier he was recognised amongst the top 100 CFOs in 2015 by 9.9 Media. He is a regular speaker at finance, business and management events in India and has been a guest speaker at MBA schools.

Neeraj has a passion for tourism, particularly in wild life and nature and amateur photography. His wife is a home maker and they have 2 boys – the elder one is working for a mental health start-up in Mumbai and the younger one is pursuing MBA in healthcare at The Wharton School, USA.