IPO Readiness: The CFO's 18-Month Checklist for the Public Markets Journey

The pipeline of Indian companies preparing for public listings has swelled significantly in 2025, driven by a receptive market and a generation of PE-backed businesses approaching natural exit windows. CXO India has worked with finance leaders at eleven companies through their IPO preparation journeys in the past two years, and the lessons are consistent enough to warrant a candid articulation. The most important thing a CFO can do eighteen months before an anticipated listing is to stop managing the business like a private company. This sounds obvious; it is not obvious in practice. Private company finance functions are built for efficiency and control — a small team, deep relationships with a handful of banks, and reporting designed for a handful of internal and external stakeholders. Public company finance functions are built for credibility and transparency — audit-committee-grade processes, investor-relations capability, quarterly reporting discipline, and the ability to explain every number to an investor who has five minutes and a sceptical prior. The gap between these two operating modes is wider than most CFOs anticipate, and the time required to close it is longer. Restating financials to Ind AS, implementing systems capable of producing quarterly management accounts within fifteen working days, building an investor relations function, and educating the broader leadership team on the disclosure obligations that come with listing — each of these is a multi-month programme in its own right. The CFOs who navigate IPO preparation well are those who begin early, are honest about their team's current capabilities, and are willing to bring in external expertise without ego.