| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Operations |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Vice President Operations |
| Direct reports | Senior Operations Manager, Operations Manager, Operations Analyst |
| Experience | 12 to 16 years in banking, NBFC, insurance or services operations, with 5 years managing managers |
AVP Operations job description template
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Job title: AVP Operations
Department: Operations
Reports to: Vice President Operations
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
An AVP Operations heads a large operations vertical, such as loan processing, customer operations or a central back office, in a bank, NBFC, insurer, fintech or services company. The role turns targets set by the VP into daily capacity, turnaround times and controls across several teams and locations. A strong AVP keeps turnaround and first-time-right steady while volumes grow, closes audit points before they repeat, and builds managers who can run the floor without constant escalation.
Key responsibilities
- Translate the annual operating plan from the VP into monthly volume, turnaround time and cost targets for each team in the vertical.
- Plan capacity for expected volumes, including peaks such as financial year end, festive lending or renewal months, and approve hiring or overtime to meet them.
- Review daily and weekly dashboards on pending cases, ageing, turnaround and first-time-right, and step in where a team slips for two days running.
- Own the control framework for the vertical: maker-checker steps, delegation of authority, exception approvals and reconciliation of suspense or pending items.
- Lead responses to internal audit, concurrent audit and regulator inspection observations, and make sure each fix is closed and tested before the next review.
- Approve process changes, new product workflows and system releases that affect operations after checking their impact on controls, turnaround and staffing.
- Sponsor automation and digitisation projects that remove manual touches, and accept the benefit only when savings show in actual headcount or error rates.
- Manage operational risk events by logging them, finding the root cause, estimating the loss and reporting the corrective action to the risk committee.
- Build the next line of managers through structured one-to-ones, job rotation and succession cover for every critical process.
- Present monthly performance of the vertical to the VP and business heads, covering cost per case, backlog and complaint trends.
Requirements
- Graduate in commerce, business or a related field
- MBA in operations or finance is an advantage
- JAIIB and CAIIB are an advantage for bank operations roles
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt is an advantage
- 12 to 16 years in banking, NBFC, insurance or services operations, with 5 years managing managers
KRAs and KPIs for a AVP Operations
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Turnaround time | At least 95 percent of cases processed within the agreed turnaround every month |
| First-time-right processing | Rework or rejected cases below 2 percent of total volume in the quarter |
| Audit and controls | No repeat audit observations, and every open audit point closed within 30 days |
| Operational losses | Operational loss events and write-offs within the limit approved by the risk committee each quarter |
| Cost per case | Cost per processed case reduced by 5 percent year on year at equal or better quality |
| Leadership bench | A ready successor named for every senior operations manager role by year end |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Core banking or loan management system, Workflow and case management tool, MS Excel and Power BI, Audit observation tracker, Operational risk register.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Vice President Operations, Head of Operations
Interview questions for a AVP Operations
- Volumes jump 40 percent for three weeks in March. How would you protect turnaround without permanent hiring?
- Tell me about an audit observation that kept repeating. What did you change so it finally stopped?
- How do you decide which manual step to automate first when every team manager is asking for help?
- A senior manager hits turnaround but first-time-right keeps falling. How do you handle that conversation?
- What does your daily and weekly operations review look like, and which numbers do you personally check?
- Describe an operational loss event you handled. How did you estimate the loss and prevent a repeat?
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What does an AVP Operations do?
An AVP Operations runs a large operations vertical, such as loan processing or customer service operations, through a team of senior managers. They set capacity and turnaround targets, own controls and audit closure, approve process changes and report performance to the VP. The job is steady service quality at a falling cost per case.
Is AVP higher than DGM?
The two sit at roughly the same band but come from different naming systems. AVP is common in banks, NBFCs, insurers and IT or ITES firms, while DGM is used in manufacturing, infrastructure, public sector units and older Indian groups. Compare the actual scope instead of the title: teams led, budget owned and who the role reports to.
What experience do you need to become an AVP Operations?
Most AVP Operations hires have 12 to 16 years in operations, including at least five years leading managers rather than frontline teams. Recruiters look for experience with audits and regulator inspections, capacity planning for volume peaks and at least one automation or process redesign with measured results. An MBA or Six Sigma belt helps but is rarely mandatory.