Post-Acquisition Working-Capital Recovery Authority — Food Ingredients

The mandate

Three months after acquisition, group cash reporting, local ledgers and plant operating records disagree on overdue receivables, consigned inventory, quality holds, supplier accruals and customer rebates. Completion-account adjustments obscured the starting point, and the acquired finance director resigned during integration. Liquidity remains adequate, but unmanaged conversion could breach the approved acquisition funding case.

The interim must start within two weeks for ten months, leading baseline reconstruction, cash recovery, close control, three cash-conversion cycles and successor induction. Permanent recruitment begins after the first reconciled quarter. Five weeks are protected for overlap; the role will not extend for commercial strategy, plant restructuring or acquisitions beyond the current combination.

Handover requires reconciled receivable, inventory and payable subledgers, explicit quality and consignment states, approved rebate and accrual controls, customer and supplier dispute ownership, a reliable thirteen-week cash forecast and three completed cycles within board tolerance. The successor must command unseen quality-release and rebate true-up events and accept residual legacy-data debt.

The authority may set collection and payment priorities, quarantine unsupported inventory value, require commercial or plant evidence, approve delegated provisions and working-capital actions, direct the authorised R$85 million recovery and appoint temporary control leads. The CFO retains policy, material write-offs, financing and excess spend; Operations and Commercial retain their decisions. The interim cannot change customer pricing or supplier contracts unilaterally.

Factory productivity, product-portfolio redesign and negotiation of acquisition claims are outside scope. The leader may require accurate operational evidence but does not own quality release, production planning or customer relationship strategy. The mandate is bounded to cash, balance-sheet integrity, dispute control and sustainable finance ownership across the acquired business.

Why this seat is open

The acquisition combined incompatible working-capital definitions, then the local finance leader’s resignation removed the person able to reconcile them while cash continues to move. Corporate teams can press for targets but cannot rebuild plant and customer evidence remotely. Temporary authority is required through three cycles and permanent succession.

What you will own

• Reconstruct the acquisition baseline across receivables, inventory, payables, rebates, accruals, provisions, cash and completion adjustments.
• Decide which balances may remain automated, require corroboration, need provisioning or must be quarantined from availability reporting.
• Segment collections by dispute, credit, proof of delivery, deduction, rebate and relationship ownership rather than ageing alone.
• Reconcile raw material, work in progress and finished stock through consignment, quality hold, slow movement and plant location.
• Govern payment timing against supplier continuity, contractual terms, duplicate risk, cash forecast and approved authority.
• Establish thirteen-week liquidity and cash-conversion reporting linked to controllable actions, owners and ledger outcomes.
• Transfer authority after three cycles and successor completion of unseen quality and customer-rebate exercises.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive working-capital or finance-integration authority after an acquisition in food, ingredients or process manufacturing.
• Reconstructed receivable, inventory and payable baselines from completion accounts, local ledgers and plant evidence.
• Improved cash without indiscriminate collection, delayed payment or inventory reduction that damaged customers, suppliers or production.
• Governed consignment, quality holds, rebates, deductions, accruals and disputes through reliable close and forecast controls.
• Worked with Commercial, Procurement and Operations while retaining finance authority over balance-sheet evidence and provisioning.
• Handed recovered cash conversion to permanent leadership through live cycles and adversarial operational events.

Non-negotiables

• Available within two weeks for exclusive São Paulo service and frequent presence at acquired plants and distribution centres.
• Has led post-acquisition working-capital recovery in physical operations; generic treasury or cost reduction is insufficient.
• No undisclosed relationship with sellers, major customers, suppliers, factors or integration advisers involved.
• Will preserve quality, supplier-continuity and customer evidence even where cash targets are temporarily missed.

1. 49 words maximum. State your São Paulo availability and one acquisition working-capital baseline you rebuilt from conflicting sources.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you release cash without exporting harm to customers, suppliers or production continuity?
3. 49 words maximum. Which unseen quality-hold and rebate event would qualify the permanent leader before handover?