Principal, International Service Entity Finance Design

The mandate

A service business is considering two international operating entities before their customer contracts and internal finance arrangements are finalised. Management needs to understand what each proposed operating route would require of finance, rather than discover reporting and approval gaps after incorporation. This principal will deliver the design: transaction flows, funding assumptions, responsibilities and readiness tests that allow an informed launch decision without becoming the continuing financial officer of either prospective company.

The six-month project starts on 26 October 2026 with three days reserved each week. The global controller accepts the transaction-and-obligation map on 17 December 2026. The sponsor and nominated local accounting advisers accept the detailed finance design on 25 February 2027. Final acceptance by the global CFO falls on 26 April 2027 after internal coordinators independently execute representative billing, funding and reporting scenarios using the delivered instructions and test records.

Sponsor inputs include draft customer arrangements, ownership proposals, expected staffing and costs, group accounting policies and access to qualified local legal and tax advisers. Their conclusions establish jurisdiction-specific requirements; the principal translates them into finance tasks and evidence. Acceptance depends on a design that can be tested, not on obtaining regulatory permissions, opening bank accounts or completing legal incorporation. Where management has not chosen an operating route, the work must preserve its alternatives and identify the decision needed before a finance requirement can be finalised.

Scope covers two prospective entities supplying the existing service family. It excludes recruiting local executives, filing statutory returns, issuing legal or transfer-pricing opinions and selecting a production technology platform. An additional jurisdiction, a regulated financial activity or a material change to the contracting route requires written sponsor change control with revised fee, specialist inputs and dates. The final design must name ownership for every recurring finance obligation and make unresolved launch prerequisites visible, so a complete-looking document cannot be mistaken for permission to commence operations.

What you will own

• Map proposed customer contracting, service delivery, invoicing and cash flows, identifying which entity would incur each obligation and where an unresolved ownership decision prevents a reliable accounting or funding design.
• Translate confirmed local specialist requirements into a recurring finance obligation calendar, naming evidence, preparer, reviewer and approval owner while keeping the authoritative legal or tax advice referenced separately from the operational instructions.
• Design funding and payment controls for launch and normal operations, distinguishing initial capital, reimbursable group support and ordinary operating receipts so the proposed bank process has a documented financial purpose.
• Specify reporting and consolidation interfaces using representative transactions, showing how local records reconcile to group measures without erasing legitimate differences in statutory treatment or creating unsupported duplicate entries.
• Build scenario tests covering delayed customer receipts, disputed billing and an unapproved local commitment, proving that the designed escalation routes lead to a responsible decision rather than a circular reference between functions.
• Deliver a readiness decision file that separates completed design from prerequisites still awaiting management or specialist action, allowing the CFO to decide what may proceed and what must remain conditional before launch.
• Train internal coordinators through independent replay of the agreed scenarios, preserving their results, identified ambiguities and corrected instructions as evidence supporting final acceptance of the complete finance setup package.

Candidate qualifications

• Bring at least 28 years of finance experience with senior leadership and substantive involvement in establishing or expanding companies across geographies. Services, fintech, BPM or shipping experience provides relevant context. Show a setup design where you personally connected contracts, funding and reporting, identifying an assumption that would have created an operating problem if the functions had continued with separate plans.
• Demonstrate a clear method for translating qualified jurisdiction-specific advice into executable finance responsibilities. You must distinguish your design conclusions from legal, tax and statutory interpretations supplied by specialists. Relevant finance education or equivalent substantial executive competence should support reliable accounting and cash analysis; familiarity with a particular country is not a substitute for obtaining current authoritative advice on the actual proposed arrangement.
• Have delivered financial models, controls and reporting interfaces that internal teams could reproduce. Explain how you tested transaction ownership, intercompany funding and approval routes before launch. Evidence should include an unresolved decision you preserved explicitly rather than hiding it in a default assumption, and a test that showed why a superficially complete setup checklist was not yet operationally adequate.
• Be able to lead a bounded project without becoming the unappointed entity CFO or promising external outcomes beyond your authority. Protect the stated weekly capacity and disclose relationships with proposed service providers. Your handover must include source advice references, scenario records, ownership and residual prerequisites. Scope discipline includes seeking a sponsor decision when a changed contracting route materially alters the design rather than absorbing it silently.

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-CON-2026-IND-224.