Day-One Finance Readiness Director

The mandate

An interim finance director is required to take operating command of Day-One readiness for a confidential business transition. No counterparty, timing signal or organisational characteristic is disclosed. The appointee must turn incomplete decisions into visible dependencies, protect non-negotiable finance continuity and prevent checklist completion from being mistaken for tested readiness.

In the first ten working days, the director will create a critical finance-services map covering cash access, payments, billing, collections, payroll interfaces, close, reporting, controls and decision authority. Each path must have a Day-One minimum, owner, dependency, contingency and proof. The director may reprioritise finance readiness resources and withhold a finance-ready recommendation where evidence is insufficient.

The first three months focus on designs, data populations, operating instructions, service dependencies and access within the approved transition perimeter. Rehearsals must test real handoffs and failure conditions rather than recite plans. The director will force unresolved accounting, tax, legal, treasury and people decisions to their authorised owners with consequence and deadline attached.

The interim role does not negotiate the transaction, make reserved policy conclusions, grant access, sign banking authorities or communicate outside approved channels. It owns finance readiness integration, evidence, escalation and controlled response during the transition. Any contingency used on Day One must have an expiry, monitoring and permanent owner.

Months six and seven cover the first operating cycle, stabilisation and transfer to permanent ownership. The handover pack will preserve exceptions, temporary services, manual controls and outstanding decisions. Extension is available only for incomplete successor transfer, not for a broad post-transition transformation.

What you will own

• Establish the minimum viable finance-services map with Day-One conditions, owners, dependencies, contingencies and evidence.
• Create an integrated readiness register that distinguishes decision, build, data, access, people, service and control dependencies.
• Exercise authority to re-sequence finance resources and withhold a readiness recommendation lacking objective proof.
• Run end-to-end rehearsals for payment, billing, cash, close and reporting paths, including failure and fallback scenarios.
• Escalate reserved accounting, legal, tax, treasury or people decisions with quantified finance consequence and decision deadline.
• Control Day-One contingencies through approvals, evidence, monitoring, expiry and permanent ownership.
• Support the first operating and close cycle with a recorded command and issue route.
• Transfer temporary services, residual decisions and post-transition priorities to permanent leaders and deputies.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate interim leadership of finance Day-One readiness in a confidential transaction or operating transition.
• Show a case where checklist status appeared green but an end-to-end rehearsal exposed a material failure.
• Bring broad command of finance continuity across cash, payments, billing, payroll interfaces, close, reporting and controls.
• Provide an example of withholding readiness until evidence was complete despite schedule pressure.
• Evidence disciplined treatment of reserved decisions without taking unauthorised accounting, legal or treasury authority.
• Describe a contingency that operated safely and was retired rather than becoming a permanent workaround.
• Show a successor handover that kept temporary services and residual risk visible after the event.

Working terms and boundaries

• The interim term is seven months at five days a week, with hybrid attendance tied to rehearsals and critical transition periods.
• Authority covers finance readiness integration, resource sequence, evidence standards and readiness recommendation.
• Transaction negotiation, policy conclusions, access grants, banking authority and external communication are excluded.
• All contingencies require documented approval, monitoring, expiry and a permanent owner.
• Any extension is capped at five weeks and solely supports accepted permanent-owner transfer.

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 8 October 2026. Mandate reference FNA-INT-2026-AKL-31.