Interim Director, Digital Infrastructure — Programme Recovery

The mandate

A principal consortium partner withdrew after failing interoperability and security milestones, leaving a population-scale digital service without an integration authority. Component teams continue to build, but interface versions, participant onboarding and launch readiness no longer have a single accountable programme owner.

The interim must start within three weeks for a fixed twelve-month assignment, covering partner replacement, controlled launch and two operating quarters. Recruitment for a permanent programme director begins after the first ecosystem cohort is live, with six weeks reserved for transfer.

Handover is complete when core interfaces pass independent interoperability and security tests, priority participants operate through two stable quarters, service and grievance measures meet threshold, the failed partner's obligations are resolved, and the successor approves one ecosystem version change.

The interim may stop releases, sequence participants, appoint temporary integration leads and deploy ₹18 crore inside the approved recovery budget. Architecture changes affecting ecosystem standards, supplier awards above ₹25 crore, permanent director hiring, launch with critical security risk and participant policy changes require steering board approval.

Policy design, statutory identity decisions and commercial services built above the platform are outside scope. The director delivers approved infrastructure and accountable operations without assuming government policy or participant business ownership.

Why this seat is open

The partner exit removed the integrator that held much of the programme's undocumented dependency knowledge. Component owners can meet local milestones while the end-to-end service remains unlaunchable. A temporary director can rebuild system authority and evidence before permanent ecosystem leadership takes over.

What you will own

• Reconstruct the programme baseline across standards, components, interfaces, participant dependencies, security and service operations.
• Decide the replacement and redistribution of failed-partner obligations through capability, continuity and commercial evidence.
• Set interoperability acceptance for version, conformance, error, consent, security, observability and fallback behaviour.
• Approve participant onboarding only after certification, support, grievance and production-readiness evidence passes.
• Exercise ecosystem failure across participant, network, identity, data and service-operator scenarios.
• Demonstrate two quarters of stable priority-participant service with reconciled transactions and grievances.
• Transfer standards decisions, supplier obligations, participant readiness, residual risks and release governance to the permanent director.

Candidate qualifications

• Led digital public infrastructure, regulated platform or multi-party ecosystem programmes at functional director level.
• Recovered delivery after a prime integrator or consortium partner failed.
• Governed open interfaces, conformance and participant certification at population or national scale.
• Managed security, consent, service and grievance readiness across independent organisations.
• Exercised launch-stop authority where political or commercial timing exceeded evidence.
• Can preserve policy and participant accountability while driving integrated technology delivery.

Non-negotiables

• Available in Delhi NCR within three weeks.
• No current relationship with failed or replacement consortium bidders.
• Will not declare launch readiness from component testing alone.
• Must have held end-to-end authority over a multi-party production platform.

1. 49 words maximum. Confirm availability and disclose any consortium, supplier or public-platform conflict.
2. 49 words maximum. Describe a partner failure you recovered and how obligations were redistributed.
3. 49 words maximum. Which interoperability test is indispensable before the first ecosystem cohort launches?

+# Interim Leadership Opportunities — India — Records 071–140