Energy Engineering Commercial Finance — Interim Head

The mandate

The interim head will reconnect bid assumptions, contract margin and cash exposure in an energy-engineering context, occupying a bounded functional finance seat. The immediate need is evidence-based commercial judgement, not automatic CFO authority or permission to negotiate legal terms without the authorised contract owner.

The twelve-month bridge opens on 19 October 2026 while a permanent head search runs alongside it. Delhi NCR is the primary base, with planned project and commercial reviews elsewhere in India. Initial work establishes the contract finance issue baseline; the final quarter requires the successor to lead bid challenge and margin review without undocumented assumptions supplied by the interim.

Handover must leave contract forecasts that reconcile expected margin, billing, cash and material liability assumptions. The permanent head must reproduce a bid-economics decision and identify a contract exposure requiring legal or project approval. Open claims and estimate disagreements remain visible with source evidence and retained owners, not treated as certain recoveries simply because commercial teams expect them.

The head may direct existing commercial finance staff, reject unsupported bid forecasts and approve budgeted finance operating costs up to ₹15 lakh. Contract pricing outside approved bands, legal liability concessions, major project provisions and permanent recruitment require retained approval. The interim cannot authorise engineering scope or recognise disputed claims through unilateral commercial optimism.

Out of scope are project execution, legal negotiation and engineering warranty conclusions. Finance will quantify alternatives while preserving specialist responsibility for facts it cannot establish independently. Five days weekly are covered by the day rate, with exceptional travel separately approved. Extension is possible only against a named unfinished leadership or handover gap, and no permanent conversion is promised.

What you will own

• Establish the contract finance issue register linking bid assumptions, forecast margin and cash exposure, identifying legal or engineering dependencies before executive review or proposed commercial commitment.
• Decide routine bid-finance readiness within approved policy, rejecting cases whose liability, execution or collection assumptions lack evidence from the retained contract and project owners.
• Approve margin and cash bridges after reconciling milestone billing, expected cost and supported claims, preserving uncertainty where recovery or project estimates remain contested.
• Direct commercial finance analysts through explicit forecast and review standards, retaining original assumptions and revision evidence rather than allowing a cleaner model to erase changing contract judgement.
• Challenge liability and provision recommendations with authorised specialists, keeping legal interpretation and material accounting approval outside the functional delegation and visible in the finance decision record.
• Escalate commercial tradeoffs with downside and alternative terms, avoiding unsupported promises of project delivery, claim recovery or engineering performance merely because a bid deadline is approaching.
• Transfer the head's decisions through successor-led bid and margin reviews, accepted source definitions and a signed register of open contract claims and retained specialist judgements.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate commercial finance-head or equivalent functional leadership in engineering, energy or a similarly long-cycle contract environment. Provide a bid or margin decision personally challenged and identify authority retained by finance, legal and project leaders. Trace the accepted recommendation through billing terms, cost evidence and liability assumptions, showing which specialist conclusion changed the financial downside or required escalation.
• Show cost, cash and reporting judgement connecting contract milestones, liabilities, estimates and collection assumptions. Explain a commercial claim that could not be treated as certain financial recovery. A relevant management-accounting or finance qualification is useful, but practical engineering-contract evidence is essential and must preserve the boundary of legal and technical opinions.
• Evidence financial planning and contract-risk communication through a redacted forecast changed after specialist challenge. Identify assumptions that failed and the resulting decision. Candidates should understand reporting frameworks and control requirements without presenting certification or system familiarity as proof of project execution authority, legal competence or enterprise CFO accountability.
• Provide a tested functional handover in which another leader reproduced the bid and margin logic, including unresolved claims and approval limits. Supply a successor's fresh-contract review showing controlled source access, challenged collection assumptions and escalation of disputed liability evidence. The reviewer must preserve uncertainty and identify retained legal, project and accounting decisions before recommending a changed forecast.

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 7 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-INT-2026-IND-33.