Operating Unit Economics and Strategic Finance Director

The mandate

The Director will build a coherent economic view for operating units whose growth, fixed commitments and shared capabilities create materially different paths to value. Aggregate performance is visible, but unit-level choices are not always assessed with consistent treatment of contribution, capacity, cash and reinvestment. The role will make those choices comparable without pretending every unit follows the same economic mechanism.

This permanent portfolio connects driver models, unit P&Ls, cohort or activity economics, capacity thresholds and long-range value. It will distinguish accounting allocations from decision-relevant costs and reveal when an attractive unit margin depends on hidden shared investment or unsupported terminal assumptions.

The Director can approve unit-economics methods, require reconciliation and return strategic finance papers that omit dependency or downside evidence. Unit leaders retain operating decisions and business accountability. Strategic finance owns the integrity of the comparative economic evidence and the record of what was decided.

The first-year agenda includes an economics taxonomy, controlled models for priority units, two resource shifts and realised-outcome review. Success will be evident when leaders act on marginal and long-term economics appropriately rather than selecting whichever view best supports a pre-existing preference.

What you will own

• Define unit boundaries and economic measures appropriate to investment, pricing, capacity, continuation and long-range decisions.
• Reconcile unit contribution to controlled results while separating direct, attributable, avoidable and shared resource effects.
• Model acquisition or activation burden, recurring contribution, retention or utilisation, capacity steps and cash conversion as applicable.
• Establish rules for when marginal economics, fully loaded economics and enterprise opportunity cost should govern a choice.
• Identify hidden subsidies, duplicated shared costs and terminal assumptions that distort comparison between units.
• Create scenario ranges for scale, saturation, cost step, quality and retention without relying on sector-specific public disclosure.
• Support two documented resource shifts and track both intended value and displaced consequences.
• Build an internal strategic-finance team capable of maintaining models and challenging unit leaders independently.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 15 years in strategic FP&A, unit economics or portfolio finance, including Director-level team leadership.
• Evidence of designing economics for unlike units and changing a resource allocation through the comparative view.
• Strong capability in contribution, marginal versus fully loaded cost, capacity steps, cash conversion, retention or utilisation and terminal value.
• A case where a promising unit depended on an unpriced shared capability and how you corrected its investment case.
• Experience reconciling granular economic models to financial results while preserving legitimate decision-specific definitions.
• Demonstrated influence over resource choices without assuming operating ownership for the units analysed.
• A record of developing analysts who can explain model boundaries and resist selective use of economic measures.

Working terms and boundaries

• This ongoing appointment has first-year gates after taxonomy, priority model approval, resource decisions and realised-value backcheck.
• Method, reconciliation and analytical challenge are included; unit strategy and operating action remain with accountable leaders.
• Hybrid attendance is concentrated around strategic reviews, model challenge sessions and allocation forums.
• No unit may be ranked on a measure whose cost boundary or decision horizon differs without explicit reconciliation.
• First-year completion requires controlled priority models, two evidenced allocation choices and durable internal ownership.

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 5 October 2026. Mandate reference FPA-PER-2026-SFO-49.