Sponsor-Capability and Intervention Board Adviser

The mandate

The committee's standing question is not whether major programmes are red or green, but whether each named sponsor knows when to protect an outcome, reset a delivery bargain, replace an assurance premise or recommend stopping. Technical scale and political visibility encourage escalation upward without a clear request, while delegated sponsors sometimes defend inherited baselines long after evidence changes. The board wants sharper sponsor judgement, not more project reporting.

Three days each month cover private chair preparation, one sponsor clinic, portfolio evidence review and six formal committee sessions across the year. The adviser will observe four sponsor-led intervention discussions and answer tightly framed ad-hoc questions within two Saudi business days. Programme teams continue to prepare papers, maintain schedules and negotiate with delivery partners; the adviser tests how sponsors use that information.

The appointment lasts twelve months and concludes after the annual investment reset and one full sponsor-effectiveness review. Any six-month renewal requires the committee to name a new portfolio-level question, assess whether internal challenge capability has matured and document continued independence. Additional programme distress by itself is not a basis for extending an advisory relationship that should strengthen the institution.

The adviser has neither line authority nor executive responsibility and cannot direct a programme, instruct contractors, alter baselines, approve funding, replace a sponsor or communicate government commitments. Influence is exercised through challenge, scenario framing and private feedback to the chair. Sponsors remain accountable for recommendations; executives and the board retain every intervention, capital and appointment decision.

Relationships with programme managers, engineering firms, sovereign investors, lenders, delivery partners, assurance providers or prospective bidders must be disclosed before relevant papers are shared. A live commercial interest requires recusal from the entire programme discussion, not merely the affected contract. Remuneration cannot depend on milestone achievement, capital deployed, contractor selection, programme continuation or advisory renewal.

Why the board wants this voice

The authority has recruited exceptional technical and commercial specialists, yet few directors have personally sponsored a portfolio where public outcomes, political commitments and irreversible capital collide. Independent pattern recognition can reveal when a sponsor is escalating noise, concealing uncertainty or delaying an uncomfortable choice. The committee wants better intervention judgement while ownership stays unmistakably internal.

What you will own

• Press each sponsor to state the public outcome, present evidence, decision clock and consequence of further delay.
• Test whether intervention thresholds distinguish recoverable variance, structural premise failure, contractor underperformance and sponsor incapacity.
• Challenge optimism embedded in baselines, contingency use, interface assumptions, assurance grades and political milestone narratives.
• Shape four sponsor scenarios requiring a reset, conditional continuation, leadership change, scope protection or stop recommendation.
• Examine whether committee papers expose dissent, reversibility, sunk-cost bias, stakeholder consequences and accountable recommendations.
• Give private feedback on sponsor conduct without becoming coach, evaluator, programme director or shadow approving officer.
• Provide the chair a portfolio pattern note, capability gaps, conflict register and questions for the annual investment reset.

Candidate qualifications

• Sponsored or governed multiple capital programmes where public outcomes, technical uncertainty and political commitments genuinely conflicted.
• Has recommended intervention, leadership change, scope reset or termination despite strong sunk-cost and timetable pressure.
• Distinguishes programme assurance from sponsor judgement and knows when additional analysis merely postpones an accountable recommendation.
• Challenged powerful delivery partners and public stakeholders while preserving clear executive and governmental decision ownership.
• Advises boards concisely from incomplete evidence without becoming a substitute programme office or informal approval layer.
• Maintained independence across sovereign investors, contractors, engineering advisers, lenders and assurance firms in major infrastructure markets.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend all six Riyadh committee sessions and four sponsor-observation days during the twelve-month term.
• Will disclose present and recent relationships with bidders, delivery partners, lenders, programme advisers and sovereign investors.
• Brings personal mega-programme sponsorship experience; assurance, scheduling or technical-project leadership alone is insufficient.
• Accepts no programme, contractor, baseline, funding, appointment, executive, government-commitment or committee-voting authority.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a programme where you advised intervention before its formal controls showed failure.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current infrastructure relationship could require recusal from this committee's work?
3. 49 words maximum. What evidence distinguishes an incapable sponsor from one confronting a genuinely unrecoverable premise?