In Conversation With Abhishek Sharma, Cfo, T24 On The Evolving Role Of Cfos

With the merging of world markets and the globalisation of economy over the last couple of decades, a spark in the transformation of corporate finance leadership has been seen. Today, CFOs need to come up with growth strategies and ideas to revolutionise their businesses. One such person who has stirred up the business world with his path-breaking, calculated strategies is Abhishek Sharma, CFO of T24 Future Groups.

A seasoned CFO with solid experience of over two decades, Mr Sharma has worked across geographies, driven business growth, and churned out desirable outcomes. He has an in-depth knowledge in corporate/business planning, business strategy formulation/execution, strategic alliance management, managing investor relations, funding, and revenue across a wide array of domains.

A finance enthusiast, Mr. Sharma has been a part of several corporate giants, and his perseverance, people influencing skills, absolute financial sense, and an eye for detailed business planning is what sets this visionary apart. He is currently spearheading T24 to success, India’s only Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) that runs on Tata Docomo network. The unique pre-paid mobile service allows customers to avail both telecom and shopping benefits whenever they ‘talk’ using their T24 number or whenever they ‘shop’ at any Future Group outlets.

His strengths lie in quickly understanding functional issues and key drivers of business performance and P&L, making him outstanding in his job. We had had the pleasure of interviewing Abhishek Sharma, CFO, T24 Group. Apart from getting to know about his journey reaching the C-Suite level, we also wanted to know the little things that he likes and mattered in his life. Here’s a glimpse of his story and tips to make strategic financial decisions, driving business growth and more.

Mr Sharma: My journey as a professional has taught me various things. The most important lesson that I go forward with is learning. It is an essential step for anyone. For me to execute anything, it is imperative to learn and understand that thing first as it helps to increase the scale and reach, ultimately aiding in strategy formation. Having worked in multiple sectors like manufacturing, automobile, communication etc. has given me experience in various stages of that industry. From the time when prepaid telecommunication was a far-fetched reality to today’s high-speed 4G internet, caller tunes, special benefits among others – my learning graph has been exponential, and that is what my journey as a professional has been.

At T24, my responsibilities include ensuring a constant flow of working capital, cash production, and timely clearance of payments daily. After that, as a business partner to the CEO and the custodian of maintaining the integrity of the business at a 360-degree level, a review is usually scheduled with different departments and stakeholders among others.

KredX: With this much work, it is obvious for a CFO to have a lot of interaction on daily basis with all the other teams of the company. As such there must be a lot of challenges that you, as a CFO has to face. So, what according to you are some challenges that a CFO has to face in the daily business which might otherwise come in the way of running a business smoothly?