Interim Regional Head of Finance, GCC Banking

Outcomes that will define success

• Within 90 days, agree one economic baseline and named owners across all 6 countries.
• Within 9 months, reduce unresolved forecast and control exceptions by 14% from the agreed baseline.
• Within 18 months, evidence $11 million of annual value without weakening regulatory or fiduciary controls.

Core responsibilities and decision rights

• Own the finance authority required to align GCC capital, liquidity and performance decisions.
• Decide the planning, reporting and evidence standards used across the 6-country scope.
• Set the capital and resource cases that may reach Group Chief Financial Officer.
• Stop commitments that preserve entity-first finance governance without measurable economic or control evidence.
• Decline investment requests whose value owner, delivery dependency or downside remains unnamed.
• Choose the sequence for regional expansion and expose dependencies before funding is committed.
• Determine the finance leadership accountabilities and escalation routes needed for GCC finance and investment decisions.

Candidate profile

You have led regional expansion where finance carried the operating consequence, not merely the reporting calendar. You have worked at or above $705 million of revenue and across at least 3 countries, with direct accountability for forecasts, controls and capital choices. You can show where your judgement stopped a weak commitment as well as where it released investment. Planning, control, capital and commercial choices must be judged together. You have owned planning and forecasting at scale, connected control evidence to commercial decisions, and explained unresolved gaps to a board without hiding behind functional language. You understand the economics of regional banking and the operating pressure created because market expansion has outpaced common finance ownership across branches, products and booking centres. You can work across GCC finance and investment decisions, challenge entity-first finance governance, and remain accountable through the full 18-month horizon. You will distinguish urgent decisions from hurried ones, protect controls that work, and make the cost of every exception visible.

Critical experience

• Geographic Expansion: The sponsor needs prior regional expansion where the financial consequences reached the board.
• Geographic Expansion: Experience of regional expansion matters because market expansion has outpaced common finance ownership across branches, products and booking centres.
• Turnaround: Prior turnaround and distress recovery gives the leader a tested reference point for changing entity-first finance governance.

Required leadership capabilities

• FP&A and forecasting — level 4: Recognised authority in planning and forecasting is needed because the first decisions depend on a trusted economic baseline.
• Controls and reporting — level 3: The leader must connect reporting evidence with the operating choices that finance is expected to challenge.
• Capital allocation — level 3: Capital allocation judgement determines which commitments continue when the portfolio exceeds available capacity.
• Board and stakeholder leadership — level 3: Board-level finance choices require concise explanation of trade-offs, consequences and unresolved gaps.

Scope and operating context

• Comparable experience should include responsibility for at least $705 million revenue, $455 million P&L, 1200 colleagues, and 3 countries.
• Principal leadership interfaces: Audit, Risk committees.
• Direct-report scope: Financial planning and analysis, Controllership, Treasury, Tax, Business finance, Finance transformation
• Candidates may be considered from: Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Doha, Qatar.
• Relocation support is available. Sponsor-supported work authorisation may be considered for qualifying candidates.

This mandate is unlikely to be right if

• You need entity-first finance governance to remain untouched while accountability changes around it.
• You prefer advisory influence without ownership of the financial consequences attached to the work required to align GCC capital, liquidity and performance decisions.
• You require complete information before making choices across 6 countries; the sponsor expects staged decisions under uncertainty.

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 14 December 2026. Mandate reference GBX-DXB-BFSI-CFO-51.