Ajit Hegde
The rare non-TA voice in the room: the finance perspective on a business where the product is human judgment.
Connect on LinkedIn ↗Ajit has spent nearly ten years running finance at Recruise (financial reporting, tax compliance, budgeting, and audit) after earlier years in audit and accounting practice. He has a front-row seat to how a people business actually works: the mandates that move the P&L, the cost discipline that makes quality possible, and a 20% efficiency gain he drove through process automation.
He writes on finance inside a people business, what process change looks like from the inside, and the long view of a career in accounting.
Read more from Ajit.
Compensation Index: IT & BFSI edition, Q2 2026
Band-by-band movement across senior IT and BFSI GCC roles, drawn from the placements we closed this quarter rather than survey aggregates.
What keeps senior talent: the levers beyond pay
The seat is won at the offer. It’s kept in the quiet quarter after, where scope, authority and charter decide whether a senior leader stays or churns.
Base, variable, ESOP, and the one most committees under-weight
At VP level the parent ESOP can carry more of the deal than the cash. If you’re competing without one, splitting the difference loses the candidate.
Pharma GCC pay is moving for a reason IT isn’t
While IT and BFSI bands have steadied, senior pharma roles are climbing. The driver is regulatory-side, not technology-side.
One hiring pattern worth knowing, every ten days.
The Mandate Desk is our read on the senior GCC talent market — one signal that moved, the read behind it, and one thing worth doing. Written from live placement data.