Chief Technology Officer (CTO) - Digital Transformation & AI

Location: Mumbai

Reporting To: Managing Director / Senior Leadership Team

About Foodlink:

A leading food and hospitality organisation with businesses spanning luxury event catering, restaurants and cloud kitchens, banquets, and integrated F&B services. The organisation operates across geographies and combines large-scale culinary operations with premium hospitality experiences. Entering its next phase of growth, the company is looking to substantially strengthen its technology capabilities and build a more digitised, automated, data-driven and AI-enabled organisation.

The Role:

Looking for a Chief Technology Officer who can lead the organisation's digital transformation journey from strategy through execution. This is not a traditional CTO role focused primarily on servers, infrastructure or IT administration. The mandate is to identify where technology, automation, artificial intelligence, data and systems can fundamentally improve the way Foodlink operates, and then build and implement that transformation across the organisation.

Key Responsibilities:

- Build and own company's 3 - 5 year technology and digital transformation roadmap, aligned with business growth.

- Conduct a comprehensive review of existing systems, workflows and technology across the organisation and identify opportunities for digitisation, automation and system integration.

- Drive organisation-wide AI adoption, identifying practical use cases where AI can improve productivity, decision-making, customer experience and operating efficiency.

- Build an automation-first culture, reducing repetitive manual processes across functions using APIs, workflow tools, RPA and AI-led automation.

- Create a unified data and business intelligence architecture, giving management real-time visibility into key business metrics.

- Develop executive dashboards and decision-support systems covering areas such as: Revenue, profitability, food cost, procurement, inventory, manpower, productivity, sales pipeline, event performance and operational KPIs.

- Improve integration between systems such as ERP, POS, finance/accounting platforms, CRM, HRMS, procurement, inventory and operational systems.

- Evaluate existing technology stack and determine what should be built internally, bought from third parties or integrated.

- Identify and deploy AI applications including Generative AI, conversational AI, predictive analytics and intelligent automation across relevant functions.

- Work with operations teams to digitise workflows across Foodlink's restaurants, catering operations, central kitchens, events, warehouses and other operating environments.

- Explore technology applications around: demand forecasting, inventory optimisation, procurement, recipe and food costing, wastage reduction, workforce planning, scheduling and logistics.

- Digitise customer and business development journeys through CRM, lead management, proposal automation, customer intelligence and sales analytics.

- Create scalable systems capable of supporting Foodlink's growth across multiple businesses, locations and geographies.

- Build appropriate data governance, cybersecurity, access-control, disaster-recovery and business-continuity frameworks.

- Develop a strong technology ecosystem comprising internal teams, technology vendors, SaaS partners and implementation specialists.

- Build and lead internal technology, data, automation and product capability over time.

- Establish clear metrics demonstrating the ROI of technology initiatives through cost savings, productivity gains, revenue improvement and better business control.

Key Transformation Areas:

- AI & Generative AI: AI copilots, knowledge systems, automated analysis, document intelligence, conversational interfaces and AI-enabled decision support.

- Business Intelligence & Analytics: Single source of truth, management dashboards, automated MIS, predictive analytics and real-time business visibility.

- Operations Automation: Digitisation of approvals, reporting, SOPs, task management, scheduling, operational audits and cross-functional workflows.

- Procurement & Supply Chain: Demand forecasting, purchasing automation, vendor analytics, inventory optimisation and wastage control.

- Finance & Commercial Analytics: Automated reporting, profitability analytics, cost monitoring, revenue reconciliation and management dashboards.

- HR & Workforce Technology: Workforce planning, recruitment technology, employee lifecycle automation, productivity measurement and learning systems.

- Customer & Sales Technology: CRM, lead management, customer intelligence, proposal automation, sales funnel visibility and relationship management.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

- Significant experience leading technology, digital transformation, enterprise applications, product, data or automation functions.

- Demonstrated experience delivering digital transformation across a large, operationally complex organisation.

- Strong understanding of AI, automation, data platforms, APIs, cloud technologies and modern enterprise software.

- Experience implementing or transforming ERP, CRM, BI, HRMS, procurement or other enterprise systems.

- Ability to translate business problems into technology solutions rather than implementing technology for its own sake.

- Strong commercial orientation with an ability to demonstrate the financial and operational ROI of technology investments.

- Experience managing multiple technology vendors, implementation partners and internal stakeholders.

- Strong understanding of information security, governance and enterprise architecture.

Preferred Background:

Candidates may come from sectors such as: Hospitality - F&B - Retail - QSR - Consumer - Logistics - Supply Chain - E-commerce - Manufacturing - Large Services Businesses.

Prior hospitality experience would be valuable, but experience successfully digitising complex, multi-location businesses will be more important than sector alone.

What Success Could Look Like:

During the initial 12 - 24 months, the CTO should be able to:

- Define enterprise technology architecture and digital roadmap.

- Significantly reduce dependence on manual Excel- and WhatsApp-led workflows.

- Establish integrated management dashboards and a reliable single source of truth.

- Implement high-impact AI and automation use cases across departments.

- Improve technology integration between Foodlink's major operating systems.

- Deliver measurable reductions in process time, manual effort and operating costs.

- Improve management visibility into performance across businesses and locations.

- Build an internal technology capability capable of supporting Foodlink's next phase of scale.

Leadership Characteristics:

- Strategic enough to think enterprise-wide.

- Hands-on enough to drive implementation.

- Commercial enough to understand ROI.

- Technical enough to challenge vendors and architecture decisions.

- Influential enough to drive adoption across a large organisation.