Portfolio Chief Financial Officer — Maritime Service Companies

The mandate

Three maritime service companies are being managed as a portfolio while retaining different principal arrangements and settlement practices. Port-agency disbursements, vessel-service invoices and cross-border reimbursement claims can produce healthy bank balances without creating cash the businesses are entitled to use. The portfolio CFO will take full finance ownership across this bounded group, making principal obligations, earned service revenue and funding requirements distinguishable in both management decisions and financial records.

Open-ended employment begins with an eighteen-month agenda to establish reliable voyage-account closure, a common finance control standard and an evidence-based expansion funding plan. Nineteen staff report through three company finance managers. Mumbai is the base, with planned reviews of overseas service interfaces. The CFO owns cross-company funding and financial governance, while company managers retain the separate responsibilities required by their contracts, ownership arrangements and local accounting obligations.

The CFO may set financial policies, determine funded operating allocations and approve properly evidenced routine disbursement exceptions within board delegation. Taking principal advances for unrelated expenditure, providing new group guarantees or altering shareholder funding terms requires explicit board authority and appropriate legal review. Marine safety, vessel technical management and agency appointment negotiations remain with their competent owners. Finance must challenge the funding consequence of those decisions without claiming authority to certify a vessel or interpret port law.

The board expects a finance organisation that can explain the cash consequence of an open voyage account and prevent unresolved reimbursements from silently becoming recurring working capital. An overseas service opportunity should have a defined funding and control path before launch. The role excludes buying vessels, operating a speculative freight book and acting as a client investment adviser. Continuing accountability covers portfolio finance, audit readiness and the discipline with which growth uses operating cash after the initial control programme is complete.

What you will own

• Establish a principal-account control book that separates advances, incurred disbursements, earned agency fees and outstanding reimbursement, making each balance's contractual basis and permitted use clear to company managers and directors.
• Govern voyage-account closure through verified supplier evidence and principal acceptance routes, deciding routine finance exceptions while escalating disputes that depend on commercial entitlement or specialist interpretation of contractual obligations.
• Allocate operating funding across the three companies using collectible fee income and documented working-capital needs, preventing a strong cash position in one principal account from masking an unfunded requirement elsewhere.
• Lead the portfolio's annual accounts and audit preparation, reconciling service revenue, reimbursable items and cross-company charges while preserving a traceable approval history for material judgements and unresolved balances.
• Evaluate overseas service expansion through entity costs, settlement behaviour and downside cash timing, recommending the conditions under which a new office or partnership can responsibly receive funded support.
• Present debt and shareholder funding alternatives with currency, maturity and guarantee consequences, enabling the board to judge available capacity without accepting nominal facility limits as evidence of unrestricted liquidity.
• Build capable company finance managers who can resolve ordinary account issues, maintain independent payment checks and communicate an emerging principal exposure before it becomes an urgent portfolio funding surprise.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate a finance career of at least 28 years with CFO or equivalent senior accountability in shipping, logistics, outsourcing or another internationally connected service business. Evidence must show personal ownership of accounts, cash and executive decisions across more than one operating perimeter. A current advisory or independent career is acceptable where earlier executive responsibilities establish readiness for continuing portfolio leadership.
• Understand principal-funded expenditure, reimbursement accounts and the distinction between client obligations and earned operating income. Maritime experience is strongly relevant; comparable fiduciary-style service accounting can also establish the method. Explain a reconciliation where the legal or contractual character of a balance changed its treatment in a funding decision, and identify the specialist advice required before any change was implemented.
• Bring practical experience of debt or equity funding, financial modelling and statutory audit coordination. Provide a financing recommendation in which settlement timing, currency or guarantees mattered as much as headline cost. Professional finance education or equivalent substantial executive competence must support your judgement, including the ability to work with qualified local accountants and legal advisers without overstating your own authority.
• Have led finance managers through cross-company disagreement and developed usable board reporting. Show how you made unresolved claims visible, delegated ordinary approvals and protected independent review over payment decisions. The role requires confidentiality across principals and entities, regular engagement with operating leaders and candid communication when a proposed expansion lacks the funding or control evidence needed to proceed responsibly.

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 10 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-219.