Operating Committee Adviser — AI and Outsourcing Boundaries

The mandate

An enterprise services operating committee is repeatedly asked to choose between AI-enabled work, external providers and retained internal capability. Proposals emphasise automation potential or vendor prices without a consistent account of exceptions, control ownership and the cost of maintaining expertise. The adviser will help the committee distinguish opportunities with credible operating economics from choices that move difficult work or risk out of the visible service perimeter.

Starting on 26 October 2026, the twelve-month term reserves four days monthly for case review, an operating-boundary challenge note and sponsor discussion. One quarterly committee meeting is included. Clarifications will receive a reasoned response within three business days; requests requiring substantial new investigation will be identified as additional scope. The agreed capacity includes preparation and analysis, not just attendance, and extra workshops require prior commercial agreement.

The adviser offers no line authority over service or technology teams and carries no executive responsibility for implementation outcomes. Procurement, technology assurance and operating executives retain approval and execution. Advice should question where human judgement remains necessary, who maintains an augmented workflow and whether a provider price excludes work the recipient still performs. It is not a technical endorsement of any particular AI system or vendor.

The committee chair assesses renewal at term end and submits any continuation for group executive approval. The approved continuation must be a newly written engagement of twelve months or less, carrying a freshly agreed advisory capacity allocation and retainer, not an automatic extension. Other engagements may continue if capacity and independence are protected. Paid representation of proposed suppliers, commissions from automation vendors and work for directly competing service bids are incompatible. Relevant financial interests and overlapping retainers must be disclosed; information barriers and recusal are considered only when they adequately protect the committee's independent evaluation.

What you will own

• Challenge AI and outsourcing cases for full operating cost, including exception review, retained expertise, maintenance and recipient rework, asking sponsors to correct savings claims that exclude unavoidable continuing effort.
• Shape a decision framework that separates standardisable activity from judgement-intensive work, helping committee members recognise when apparently similar transactions have materially different control and consequence profiles.
• Test proposed ownership boundaries for failed or uncertain outputs, questioning who detects errors, approves correction and preserves evidence when an augmented process or external provider cannot resolve an exception.
• Advise on reversible pilot conditions and learning gates, suggesting evidence that should precede wider commitment without directing implementation teams or making an unauthorised procurement decision.
• Review post-pilot economics against the original case, highlighting cost transfer, hidden support or dependence on scarce specialists rather than accepting a headline automation percentage as proof of operating improvement.
• Press the committee to retain explicit capability and exit plans, examining how the business could recover service knowledge or change providers if the chosen model no longer meets its operating needs.

Candidate qualifications

• Show 22–28 years of operating, GBS or shared-services leadership, including COO-level or equivalent responsibility for global process chains. Financial services, food services or consumer-product experience is relevant. Bring a decision where you compared retained and external delivery models, identifying how exceptions and control ownership changed the economic conclusion rather than treating supplier price as the complete cost.
• Demonstrate applied understanding of automation and AI in finance or enterprise service operations, without claiming technical assurance outside your competence. Explain how you tested benefit, retained human judgement and assigned maintenance responsibility. Six Sigma, GBS or change training is useful where it supported an evidence-based operating decision; knowledge of fashionable tools alone is not sufficient advisory standing.
• Have challenged executive investment proposals through clear, balanced committee writing. Evidence should include a seemingly attractive automation or outsourcing case you revised after examining hidden work, dependency or exit risk. The engagement requires comfort advising that a bounded pilot is preferable to commitment, and the ability to distinguish a financial or operating concern from a technical security opinion requiring qualified input.
• Disclose vendor interests, supplier commissions and competing service engagements before access to proposals. Four reserved days monthly and the three-business-day response window must remain realistic alongside your portfolio. Independent advice means being willing to recuse or decline work when a conflict cannot be controlled, and accepting that management may make a different decision without the adviser acquiring executive authority over its implementation.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 15 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-ADV-2026-IND-120.