Media and Aviation Services Operating Recovery — Interim CEO

The mandate

The interim CEO must connect commercial, operations and finance leaders through a credible route to sustainable operating profit. The seat concerns media and aviation-related services economics, not ownership of regulated flight operations or creative decisions that require the relevant specialist authority.

The appointment starts on 19 October 2026 and runs for twelve months, with the permanent CEO search continuing in parallel. Bengaluru is the executive base; planned service-site and commercial reviews require domestic travel. The first quarter establishes the recovery baseline and stop conditions, while the final quarter includes successor-led operating and commercial decision reviews.

Handover requires a reconciled route-to-profit plan with accountable owners, tested customer economics and visible cash dependencies. The permanent CEO must lead one operating review and decide a representative growth-versus-margin tradeoff without the interim supplying undocumented context. Underperforming programmes cannot be described as recovered simply because revenues grew or one-off costs were removed from the presentation.

The CEO may reprioritise approved operating activity, direct functional leaders and approve budgeted commitments up to ₹75 lakh. New debt, acquisitions, permanent executive appointments and material organisational restructuring require board approval. Changes affecting aviation safety, regulated permissions or legal obligations remain with authorised specialists; the interim cannot use executive urgency to override those retained decisions.

The remit excludes transaction origination, flight operations sign-off and creative production ownership. Recovery must be achieved through evidenced commercial and operating choices, not guaranteed deal introductions or indiscriminate reductions in service quality. Five-day executive availability is priced by the day, with exceptional travel separately reimbursed and no annual salary equivalent, equity award or automatic conversion attached.

What you will own

• Establish the operating recovery baseline reconciling service contribution, customer commitments and cash, separating durable improvement from accounting adjustments or activity growth that increases delivery obligations without profit.
• Decide which programmes are retained, redesigned or stopped within approved authority, recording customer consequences and the evidence supporting each choice rather than applying an indiscriminate turnaround rule.
• Direct commercial and operations heads through a joint profit review, resolving pricing, capacity and service-quality tradeoffs with accountable decisions and visible retained specialist approvals.
• Approve budgeted recovery investments within delegation, testing expected contribution and downside cash before additional spend is treated as necessary merely because a programme is strategically favoured.
• Challenge deal and partnership proposals for execution capability, preserving board approval of acquisitions and material commitments while refusing assumptions that depend on unverified synergies or guaranteed access.
• Escalate structural or funding choices to the board with viable alternatives and residual risks, keeping aviation, legal and creative specialist responsibilities outside unsupported CEO judgement.
• Transfer executive recovery decisions through successor-led operating reviews, tested customer economics and an accepted record of unresolved commitments and board-retained choices at the end of the term.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate genuine CEO, operating chief or equivalent P&L leadership in services, media, aviation-adjacent or similarly complex commercial operations. Show a recovery decision personally owned and identify board and specialist approvals retained. Founder status or strategic consulting tenure alone is not enough without continuing responsibility for operating outcomes and customer commitments.
• Provide evidence of route-to-profit judgement connecting pricing, capacity, service cost and cash rather than revenue growth alone. Bring a redacted programme case stopped or redesigned and explain the tradeoff made. Candidates must distinguish their commercial authority from aviation safety, regulated operating permissions and creative or technical specialist decisions outside the seat.
• Show deal-structure and growth judgement through an opportunity rejected or staged because delivery capability or durable contribution was weak. Explain how finance and operations evidence changed the recommendation. The role does not promise acquisitions, funding or brand success; credible executive leadership must remain independent of origination commissions or a preferred transaction outcome.
• Establish thirty years of relevant experience and a tested transfer of P&L decisions to another executive. Describe how customer obligations, operating limits and unresolved board choices were retained in the handover. Show a successor-led programme decision that tested contribution, delivery capacity and downside cash, with aviation or other regulated approvals routed to the responsible specialist rather than absorbed into commercial judgement.

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-INT-2026-IND-32.