Going-Concern and Viability Board Challenger — Aerospace Systems

The mandate

The board returns each quarter to whether programme delays, supplier distress, customer advances and covenant headroom are represented coherently in going-concern and longer-horizon viability work. Finance begins with the approved forecast, Treasury begins with facilities and Operations begins with recovery milestones. Directors cannot see which dependencies are evidenced, double counted or assumed to reverse before liquidity tightens.

The challenger will reserve three days monthly for chair preparation, scenario review and private sessions with Finance, Treasury and programme leaders, plus five Montreal committee meetings. A written response to a material liquidity or covenant event is due within one Canadian business day. Forecast building, refinancing, accounting preparation or audit work requires a separately authorised mandate.

The appointment lasts ten months from February 2027. At month eight, management must defend an unseen supplier failure, customer delay and covenant cure scenario. The committee may renew once for no more than three months around a named reporting or financing gate; the decision must be minuted, and unused access cannot become continuing treasury support.

The challenger has no line authority, executive authority, accounting-signing right, audit role, lender mandate, financing power, programme-control responsibility or approval vote. Management owns forecasts and statements; boards approve assessments; auditors retain independent conclusions. Advice cannot be represented as a going-concern conclusion, viability statement, financing commitment or audit assurance.

Appointments or interests involving lenders, major customers, distressed suppliers, restructuring advisers, auditors, rating agencies or aerospace competitors must be disclosed as conflicts. One unrelated industrial board role may continue with chair consent. Contingent compensation tied to covenant relief, financing, audit outcome or reported viability is incompatible with independent challenge.

Why the board wants this voice

Directors receive technically competent forecast, liquidity and programme packs, but no one in the room has personally signed through a multi-programme aerospace cash crisis. They want an operator able to expose dependency and cure assumptions without becoming the treasurer, restructuring adviser, auditor or sponsor of management’s base case.

What you will own

• Press directors to reconcile forecast profit, milestone cash, customer advances, supplier support, facilities, covenant and headroom by period.
• Test programme recovery assumptions for certification, delivery, penalty, working-capital, escalation and cash-conversion dependencies.
• Challenge mitigations for legal enforceability, decision lead time, counterparty consent, execution ownership and double counting.
• Frame scenarios for supplier insolvency, customer deferral, certification delay, foreign-exchange shock, covenant breach and facility withdrawal.
• Probe reverse stress tests for trigger logic, management reaction, compounding effects and the point where credible cures disappear.
• Examine alignment among going-concern horizon, viability period, risk disclosures, forecasts and board-approved strategy.
• Coach directors to distinguish available liquidity, forecast headroom, executable mitigation and formal accounting conclusion.

Candidate qualifications

• Held senior CFO, treasury or financial-resilience authority through an aerospace or complex manufacturing liquidity stress.
• Governed going-concern and viability evidence across long-cycle programmes, customer advances, supplier exposure and covenant constraints.
• Designed reverse stress and mitigation tests that incorporated decision lead times, permissions, dependencies and operational feasibility.
• Presented difficult headroom and disclosure choices to boards, lenders and auditors without blurring management and assurance roles.
• Challenged forecasts where programme optimism, working-capital timing and duplicated mitigation understated downside liquidity.
• Managed conflicts across lenders, advisers, suppliers and customers while protecting restricted financing and programme evidence.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend all five Montreal sessions and respond within one business day to a material liquidity event.
• Will disclose lender, customer, supplier, adviser, auditor and competitor interests before forecast access.
• Accepts literal absence of line, executive, accounting, audit, financing, programme and approval authority.
• Must evidence board-level going-concern challenge in a long-cycle operating crisis; theoretical reporting experience is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a viability mitigation that failed once its dependencies and decision lead time were modelled.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current lender, customer, supplier, adviser or auditor interests require board disclosure?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you identify the reverse-stress point where management actions cease to be credible?