Services Growth and Capacity-Investment Adviser

The mandate

The committee repeatedly asks how much services growth capacity should be created before demand is firm, and which capability investments justify carrying a temporary margin burden. A simple utilisation target can discourage valuable capability building, while a vague strategic label can protect a bench that will never convert. The adviser will test the economic distinction and the evidence needed to act.

Four days a month cover investment-paper review, delivery and finance interviews, and a written challenge meeting. Quarterly operating committee attendance is included. Papers are supplied five working days in advance; ad-hoc requests are acknowledged within one business day and answered within three where existing evidence is sufficient. Building a fresh workforce model or reviewing an acquisition is separately scoped, not presumed in the retainer.

The nine-month term starts on 19 October 2026, with renewal determined by the committee chair against remaining decision needs and demonstrated internal capability. Gurugram is the coordinating location, combining remote preparation with scheduled India workshops. The cadence is designed around discrete choices, not continuous shadow participation in every commercial or staffing conversation.

Hiring and customer acceptance stay with executives. The review gives no line authority; there is no executive responsibility assigned to this adviser for execution of approved capacity choices. Hiring, pricing, capacity release and performance management remain with management. Advice should make the tradeoffs explicit: the cash cost of waiting, the margin cost of readiness and the probability that a claimed strategic skill will become monetisable demand. The committee owns the final decision and any departure from the recommendation.

Other non-competing retainers are allowed if the review timetable is protected. Advising a bidder for the same delivery work, holding a recruiter or subcontractor interest in a reviewed proposal, or preparing a business case while simultaneously claiming independence would conflict. Relationships must be disclosed before access, with recusal and information restrictions agreed where necessary. The adviser is not being retained to sell a staffing solution.

What you will own

• Test capability investments against identifiable demand pathways, skill lead times and the conditions under which the committee should stop carrying capacity.
• Question bench-recovery assumptions by separating redeployable capacity, deliberate readiness and structural mismatch rather than using a single enterprise utilisation percentage.
• Shape comparisons between hiring, subcontracting and delayed acceptance of demand, showing margin, cash and execution risk on an equivalent basis.
• Press sponsors on the contribution effects of growth incentives, including whether discounts or delivery complexity are omitted from the attractive revenue story.
• Challenge allocation of strategic costs so the committee can identify genuinely incremental investment without penalising a portfolio through arbitrary shared charges.
• Recommend review triggers and downside limits that keep approved capability bets visible, revisitable and distinct from routine operating underperformance, with clear follow-up evidence.

Candidate qualifications

• Show twelve or more years in business finance or FP&A with senior responsibility in services, BPO, IT delivery or similar labour-intensive operations. Present a growth-capacity proposal you challenged, the alternative made comparable and the actual decision influenced. Candidates must demonstrate commercial judgement rather than generic strategic-planning credentials.
• Evidence expertise linking utilisation, bench, skills, pricing and contribution. Describe a case where raising a utilisation target would have damaged valuable capability or where a strategic investment label concealed weak demand. Explain the data you used and the limitation you kept visible when the future was uncertain.
• Bring experience advising operating leaders on capital-light growth investment and competing resource commitments. Show how you assessed subcontractor, hiring or demand-deferral options, with the effect on delivery reliability and cash. Familiarity with workforce planning is useful, but the adviser must respect employment and operational decisions owned elsewhere.
• Demonstrate independence in a senior review setting, including a recommendation that was rejected and how residual risk was recorded. Disclose relevant staffing, supplier, customer and consulting interests, and explain how you maintain timely written challenge with concurrent work. Show how you made the funding consequence of a capability choice visible while retained executives decided its delivery and commercial priorities.

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 12 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-ADV-2026-IND-45.