Senior Financial Controller — Laboratory Services Asset Stewardship

The mandate

Laboratory services depend on instruments and specialist consumables whose physical condition, ownership and usable life are often known more clearly at the bench than in finance. A three-entity service network is creating a Senior Financial Controller position to connect that operating evidence to its balance sheet. Several acquisition and equipment arrangements have increased the importance of consistent, supportable asset decisions.

Stock recoverability, instrument records, leases and audit-ready balance-sheet schedules define this controller's initial eighteen-month agenda within open-ended permanent employment. Early work will establish which items are owned, borrowed, leased or held for another party. Later reviews will make those distinctions maintainable through procurement, laboratory movements and equipment replacement, rather than reconstruct them solely when the annual auditor asks.

The practical issue is neither a blanket expiry reserve nor an assumption that a functioning instrument retains its recorded value. A consumable can remain within its labelled life but have no usable demand; an instrument can continue operating after its commercial workload changes materially. Laboratory leaders substantiate intended use and technical condition, while finance challenges the recoverable financial position using applicable accounting policy and documented commercial evidence.

This controller approves routine reconciliations, asset-accounting treatments and close adjustments within delegated tolerances. Material impairments, significant accounting-policy changes and exceptional write-offs require the Finance Director's approval, with appropriate committee visibility. Laboratory quality, scientific validity and clinical conclusions belong to qualified operating specialists. The role neither certifies test results nor decides that a technical asset is safe to operate.

Within twelve months, the material balance-sheet schedules should reconcile to financial records and identifiable operating evidence, with unresolved ownership or valuation issues explicitly assigned. By eighteen months, site teams should produce reliable movement and condition information without emergency reconstruction. Ongoing accountability includes maintaining those controls as the service portfolio evolves, supporting external audit and developing accountants able to explain estimates as well as calculate them.

What you will own

• Establish an instrument ownership register connecting purchase, lease and third-party placement documents to the asset ledger, resolving inconsistencies before depreciation or lease schedules are relied upon.
• Define consumable recoverability reviews using approved demand evidence, stock condition and expiry information, distinguishing technical usability from the commercial expectation that recorded inventory will be consumed profitably.
• Govern asset additions and retirement reconciliation through site-verified records, identifying transferred or decommissioned equipment whose accounting position has not followed its actual operating disposition.
• Prepare impairment assessment files that connect management assumptions, applicable accounting treatment and sensitivity evidence, escalating significant judgement rather than disguising uncertainty within an unexplained reserve percentage.
• Control lease-accounting input changes arising from equipment amendments, renewals and returned instruments, obtaining contractual clarification before finance updates terms whose economic effect remains uncertain.
• Lead external audit support for material asset balances, assigning evidence owners and resolving factual exceptions without allowing the annual timetable to substitute for a substantiated accounting conclusion.
• Develop site finance coordinators through quarterly balance-sheet reviews, testing whether they can explain ownership, movement and estimate changes to an independent reviewer without depending on central memory.

Candidate qualifications

• Chartered-accountancy qualification and substantial financial reporting or assurance work are required, with demonstrated responsibility for material balance-sheet estimates. Explain an inventory or fixed-asset conclusion you changed after inspecting operating evidence. The relevant proof is the connection between condition, ownership, expected use and accounting treatment, including the review and approval route followed.
• Bring applied understanding of impairment, depreciation, lease accounting and inventory recoverability under the relevant reporting framework. Experience in laboratory services, technical services or another equipment-intensive environment is useful; comparable asset complexity is acceptable. Describe how you distinguished a physical observation from a financial estimate and obtained specialist evidence without claiming technical expertise outside your remit.
• Show disciplined reconciliation and audit-file construction, including source documents, ledger bridges, estimate assumptions and unresolved exceptions. A persuasive schedule should remain intelligible after the preparer changes. Provide an example where apparently complete supporting records concealed an ownership or valuation weakness, and explain how you corrected both the reported position and its continuing information flow.
• Demonstrate leadership of accountants and operational evidence providers through difficult close judgements. You must challenge a favourable asset claim constructively, coach site teams and preserve material escalation. Explain a contested write-off or estimate review, your own technical contribution and how subsequent records showed whether the accepted judgement remained reasonable as commercial circumstances developed.

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 10 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-051.