Lead - Surety & Bond Capacity (US)

Lead Surety & Bond Capacity (United States)

Treasury & Structured Finance

Function

Insurance and Risk

Experience

1012 years, with a minimum of 6–7 years in US contract surety

Location

Bangalore, remote considered for the right candidate

Mandate

Establish and grow US surety credit for Zetwerk’s US entities, and place contract and commercial bonds against that credit

About the Role

Zetwerk’s US business bids and executes contracts that require bonding — bid, performance and payment bonds on private owner-driven contracts, alongside commercial and licence bonds. Access to that bonding is gated by a surety’s willingness to extend credit, and the credit case for a US subsidiary of an Indian parent is not a standard one.

We are hiring a senior individual contributor to build that case and convert it into capacity. You will secure a surety credit facility — single-job and aggregate program limits — from a Treasury-listed carrier, and then run placement against it. The role requires someone who has sat on either side of the surety underwriting table and knows exactly what a home office needs to see before it signs off on a new name.

What You Will Own

1. Establishing surety credit

• Build the underwriting submission that gets Zetwerk’s US entities approved: CPA-prepared financial statements, work-in-process schedules, backlog and gross-profit-fade analysis, banking and line-of-credit references, organisational depth, and continuity and succession planning.
• Structure and negotiate the credit enhancements that a foreign-parent, limited-US-operating-history profile typically requires — parent company guarantees, cross-border indemnity agreements, funds control, collateral or letters of credit — and then negotiate their reduction and removal as the track record builds.
• Negotiate single-job and aggregate program limits, rate structures, and the terms of the General Indemnity Agreement (GIA), including the scope of indemnitors and any carve-outs.
• Select and manage the carrier panel — confirm Treasury listing under Circular 570 and the applicable underwriting limitation, review AM Best ratings, and assess appetite by trade, geography and contract size. Where a single carrier’s underwriting limitation is a constraint, structure co-surety or reinsurance-supported arrangements.
• Own the broker relationship (Marsh, Aon, WTW, Alliant, Gallagher, or a specialist surety-only house) and hold them accountable for market access and outcomes.

2. Placing bonds

• Run day-to-day bond placement: bid bonds, performance and payment bonds, maintenance and warranty bonds, subdivision and site-improvement bonds, and commercial, licence and permit bonds.
• Ensure compliance with federal, state and municipal bond form requirements, including the Miller Act and applicable Little Miller Acts, and manage powers of attorney and consents of surety.
• Review bond forms and owner-drafted wordings; identify onerous obligations, negotiate amendments, and escalate what cannot be negotiated to legal and commercial teams before the bid goes out.
• Partner with US business development and project teams so bonding capacity is confirmed at the pursuit stage — and so a bid is never lost or an award never jeopardised for lack of a bond.
• Maintain a live register of bonded backlog, open penal sums, and remaining capacity by entity and carrier.

4. Governance, claims and reporting

• Maintain audit-ready documentation, delegated authority and approval workflow for all bond issuance in the US.
• Manage claims, defaults and demands — including notice obligations, documentation, defence coordination and settlement — while protecting the long-term carrier relationship.
• Report capacity, utilisation, pricing and exposure to US leadership and to Group Treasury, and reconcile US bonding strategy with the group-wide guarantee and bonding framework.

What You Bring

Essential

• 10–12 years of total experience, with at least 6–7 years in US contract surety — as a surety underwriter, a surety broker or producer, or in a contractor-side risk, treasury or bonding role.
• A demonstrated record of getting surety credit approved — you have taken a name to a home office and come back with a program, not just executed bonds against an existing facility.
• Deep familiarity with the three Cs of surety underwriting (character, capacity, capital) and with how carriers actually read a WIP schedule, an over/underbilling position and a profit-fade trend.
• Command of the GIA and its practical consequences — indemnity scope, collateral demands, and what a surety can compel post-default.
• An existing, credible network among US surety underwriters and brokers.
• Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, risk management or a related field.