LEADERSHIP WITH VISION: CFO S Chandramouli Guiding Bennett’s Fiscal Future
Times of Bennett | Updated: Jul 22, 2025 16:43
Mr. S. Chandramouli arrives at Bennett University with a mandate to turn finance into a strategic growth engine, not just a control function. A Chartered Accountant with 25 years across merchant banking, IT‑ITeS, engineering, chemicals, industrial catering, and higher education, he has guided organisations through restructuring, rapid scale‑ups, and complex audits while keeping balance sheets rock‑solid.
At SRM Group, his last post, Chandramouli led a multi‑year financial transformation that boosted operating margins, unlocked new funding channels, and underwrote two additional campuses without compromising cash flow. Earlier roles saw him build job‑costing systems for manufacturers, pioneer credit‑rating processes for listed firms, and oversee digital finance roll‑outs that cut month‑end close time by 60 per cent.
Now at Bennett, he is reframing finance around agility and impact:
leadership philosophy—clarity in numbers, speed in execution, integrity in stewardship—maps directly onto Bennett’s aspiration to be India’s most future‑ready university. By coupling financial discipline with strategic boldness, he is positioning the institution to invest confidently in new programmes, cutting‑edge labs, and global partnerships that will define the next decade of academic excellence.
At SRM Group, his last post, Chandramouli led a multi‑year financial transformation that boosted operating margins, unlocked new funding channels, and underwrote two additional campuses without compromising cash flow. Earlier roles saw him build job‑costing systems for manufacturers, pioneer credit‑rating processes for listed firms, and oversee digital finance roll‑outs that cut month‑end close time by 60 per cent.
Now at Bennett, he is reframing finance around agility and impact:
- Predictive, not reactive: deploying AI‑driven forecasting and real‑time dashboards to align resources with academic demand weekly.
- Capital for innovation: structuring outcome‑based budgets, funnelling surpluses into research, incubation, and global collaborations.
- Value‑centric procurement: introducing spend analytics and vendor‑scorecards to shave 8‑10 per cent off operating costs while boosting quality of service.
- Transparent governance: moving audit and compliance processes to a single source‑of‑truth platform for instantaneous board‑level insights
- Financial access for students: expanding need‑based aid and income‑share models to widen talent pipelines without eroding fiscal health.
