International Tax Operating Model Director

The mandate

The standing question is whether international-tax decisions reach the right authority with reliable facts before commercial or financial commitments narrow the available choices. Existing expertise may be technically capable, yet the board wants independent scrutiny of how matters enter the tax agenda, how cross-border consequences are compared and how accountability passes between tax, finance, legal and operational leaders.

For nine months, the adviser will hold one weekly working clinic, a monthly sponsor review and one scheduled committee meeting. The first phase tests the intake and decision map; the middle phase observes live matters and presses weaknesses in evidence or authority; the final phase assesses whether the operating model produces timely, recorded and appropriately escalated decisions without the adviser acting as a shadow tax executive.

This is an influence-only role with no line authority, transaction veto, filing responsibility or power to retain external specialists. The Director can ask the sponsor for evidence, challenge whether a paper is decision-ready, recommend escalation and record unresolved concerns. Accountable executives and the board decide, implement and accept risk.

Any relationship with advisers, authorities, counterparties or governing bodies that could impair—or reasonably appear to impair—independence must be disclosed. The adviser will recuse where safeguards cannot protect the board's confidence. Renewal requires a newly defined governance question and explicit approval; unfinished management actions do not automatically extend the appointment.

What you will own

• Map the end-to-end route from business proposal to international-tax analysis, accountable recommendation, reserved approval, implementation control and post-decision review.
• Test whether permanent establishment, residence, withholding, financing, treaty, controlled-foreign-company and minimum-tax questions enter decisions early enough.
• Press management to separate legal interpretation, factual assumption, financial consequence and risk appetite in every material cross-border paper.
• Shape an authority matrix that identifies which decisions remain local, which require central concurrence and which belong to board governance.
• Review a representative portfolio of live matters for evidence quality, timing, conflict management and consistency with previously accepted positions.
• Facilitate two decision rehearsals that expose hand-off failures between tax, finance, legal and accountable operational leaders.
• Recommend operating measures that track decision lead time, reopened conclusions, control completion and residual exposure rather than activity volume.
• Provide an independent closing opinion on whether governance can operate without advisory intervention and where board attention remains necessary.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 18 years in international tax, including Director-level leadership across several jurisdictions and direct exposure to board or committee governance.
• A prior operating-model intervention where clearer decision rights altered the timing or quality of a cross-border commitment.
• Breadth across residence, permanent establishments, treaties, withholding, CFC rules, financing, tax accounting and global minimum-tax interfaces.
• Evidence of identifying a technically sound analysis that nevertheless failed because facts, ownership or implementation controls were weak.
• Ability to challenge tax and non-tax executives without assuming their authority or becoming the unrecorded decision maker.
• A conflict profile compatible with confidential governance access and disciplined recusal where concurrent appointments overlap.
• Availability for three days each week, including the published Dubai working and committee cadence.

Working terms and boundaries

• The monthly retainer covers three days a week for nine months, weekly clinics and one scheduled board or committee meeting each month.
• The adviser has no line authority and cannot approve structures, filings, settlements, adviser appointments, budgets or management performance decisions.
• Additional projects, document production or extraordinary attendance require separate written scope; unused capacity cannot be converted into executive cover.
• Conflicts are tested before access and refreshed when new matters arise, with recusal documented through the committee sponsor.
• The engagement ends with a governance opinion and transfer session; renewal depends on a distinct board question, not continued management dependency.

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 11 October 2026. Mandate reference TAX-ADV-2026-DXB-07.