Executive Planning Cycle and Handover Director

The mandate

The interim Director will run a complete executive planning cycle while converting undocumented judgement and person-dependent routines into transferable institutional capability. A leadership transition has created a time-bound gap; the objective is continuity with improvement, not an open-ended substitute appointment. Start is required within four weeks of selection.

The eleven-month term covers outlook reset, strategic assumptions, annual planning, executive challenge, approval baseline, first performance cycle and reforecast. The Director must keep decisions moving while documenting how evidence, judgement, control and escalation interact, so a permanent successor inherits authority that can actually be exercised.

Temporary powers encompass cycle scheduling, submission quality, assumption governance, consolidated plan recommendation and deployment of the FP&A team. The appointee cannot approve strategy, targets, budgets or operating actions. Broader organisation redesign and production-system replacement are outside scope.

Handover is designed from day one. A successor profile and competency test will be agreed in month one, selection supported without candidate preference and progressive authority transferred after appointment. Final exit follows one independently led forecast, one executive planning forum and a controlled baseline-change exercise observed by the interim Director.

What you will own

• Stabilise the current outlook and publish a controlled calendar covering strategic assumptions through first post-plan reforecast.
• Establish decision rights for assumptions, targets, resources, risks, scenarios, challenge, consolidation and release.
• Run executive assumption forums that quantify disagreement and escalate choices without using central overlays as substitutes.
• Deliver an integrated annual plan with reconciled income, cash, balance-sheet, resource and investment views.
• Preserve an approval baseline and implement change control for later strategic, scope, rate and timing decisions.
• Build a cycle handbook containing controls, decision examples, escalation paths, calendars and owner commitments.
• Assess the permanent successor through live work, including one forecast, one executive forum and one planted baseline-change issue.
• Close the assignment with a CFO-signed transfer of authority, open risks, team objectives and the next improvement backlog.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 16 years in enterprise FP&A, including Director leadership through strategic, annual and rolling planning cycles.
• Evidence of covering a senior planning gap while leaving a stronger permanent process and capable successor.
• Broad mastery of integrated planning, assumptions, scenarios, management reporting, controls and executive decision papers.
• A case where you kept a planning cycle on track without assuming executive choices or hiding disagreement.
• Experience defining and observing successor competency through real cycle events rather than interview judgement alone.
• Strong team leadership during uncertainty, with evidence of retention, development and clear temporary authority.
• Availability for five-day on-site work in Pune across the complete eleven-month cycle.

Working terms and boundaries

• The interim appointment is eleven months at five days weekly; only a failed independent-cycle test can justify one further month.
• Cycle leadership, quality gates and team deployment are included; strategy, target, budget approval and operating actions remain excluded.
• The Director will not make permanent organisation changes or commit to a production-system replacement under interim authority.
• Successor criteria are agreed in month one, with staged transfer beginning immediately after appointment.
• Completion requires an approved baseline, first reforecast, three successor-led tests and a signed authority-and-risk handover.

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 5 October 2026. Mandate reference FPA-INT-2026-PNQ-57.