Aye Finance Appoints Ankur Sharma as Chief Human Resources Officer

Aye Finance has elevated Ankur Sharma to the position of Chief Human Resources Officer, strengthening its senior leadership team as the micro-enterprise-focused NBFC continues to scale its business, workforce and organisational capabilities.

Sharma has been leading the Human Resources function at Aye Finance since 2018 and has played an important role in developing the company’s people and culture agenda during a period of significant expansion.

His elevation is part of a broader leadership restructuring at Aye Finance, with the company also elevating three other senior executives to Chief-level positions.

Four senior leaders take on Chief-level roles

Alongside Sharma’s appointment as CHRO, Aye Finance has announced the elevation of:

• Piyush Maheshwari as Chief Credit and Operations Officer
• Akash Purswani as Chief Collection Officer
• Sovan Satyaprakash as Chief Strategy & Investor Relations Officer

The appointments are aimed at strengthening leadership across key business functions as the company manages increasing scale and complexity.

According to Aye Finance Managing Director Sanjay Sharma, the leadership changes recognise the consistent performance of the executives and are expected to bring fresh perspectives to the organisation’s next phase of growth.

Sharma’s journey at Aye Finance

Ankur Sharma has been responsible for the HR function at Aye Finance since 2018.

During this period, the organisation’s workforce has expanded to more than 11,000 employees. Alongside workforce growth, Sharma has focused on building organisational culture, strengthening talent development and improving employee experience.

His elevation to CHRO reflects the increasing importance of people strategy as Aye Finance continues to expand its operations across India’s micro-enterprise lending landscape.

Experience across diverse industries

Before joining Aye Finance, Sharma built his HR career across several prominent organisations.

His previous employers include Raymond, SLK, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Cisco Systems and Evalueserve.

This experience has given him exposure to different business environments and workforce models, spanning pharmaceuticals, technology, business services and consumer-facing industries.

At Aye Finance, this experience has translated into a people agenda focused on supporting business growth while strengthening organisational capability.

Building HR for a growing workforce

For a business operating at the scale of more than 11,000 employees, HR leadership involves considerably more than recruitment and workforce administration.

As organisations expand across locations and functions, people leaders increasingly need to focus on:

• Talent acquisition and retention
• Leadership development
• Employee experience
• Organisational culture
• Workforce capability building
• Performance management
• Succession planning
• Scalable HR processes

Sharma’s expanded mandate comes at a stage where these priorities are closely linked to the company’s ability to maintain operational effectiveness while continuing to grow.

Leadership expansion reflects Aye Finance’s next phase

The simultaneous elevation of leaders across HR, credit and operations, collections, and strategy and investor relations points towards a broader effort to strengthen functional leadership across the organisation.

For Aye Finance, the appointments come as the company continues serving India’s micro and small businesses through its lending operations.

The increasing scale of the workforce and business also creates greater requirements around leadership depth, employee engagement and organisational alignment.

Strengthening the people agenda

As CHRO, Sharma will continue to play a central role in shaping the organisation’s people strategy and supporting its evolving workforce requirements.

His experience of leading HR through a period of significant employee growth gives him a strong understanding of the challenges involved in building culture and talent capabilities at scale.

Sharma holds an MBA in Human Resource Management from XLRI Jamshedpur.

His appointment marks another senior HR leadership movement within India’s financial services sector and highlights how people strategy is becoming increasingly central to the growth and scalability of organisations operating in high-volume, workforce-intensive businesses.