Banking Scenario and Strategic Resilience Committee Adviser

The mandate

The strategy committee repeatedly asks whether management's banking growth scenarios remain credible when several adverse conditions occur together. Existing papers offer a base case and isolated sensitivities, but they give limited insight into sequencing, organisational response or the cost of waiting. An external adviser will challenge the reasoning that connects scenario outputs to the committee's strategic choices.

The commitment is four days each month for twelve months from 26 October 2026, with one quarterly committee meeting included in the monthly retainer. Two scheduled working sessions and a written challenge note form the regular cadence. For off-cycle scenario papers, the adviser confirms receipt by the next business day; written challenge is due three business days after the relevant assumptions and evidence arrive.

The standing task is to test the coherence of strategic narratives, not to create regulatory stress models or provide an independent risk sign-off. Planning, treasury and risk teams supply their approved inputs and explain the constraints each represents. The adviser explores how changes in demand, delivery cost or execution timing affect management's proposed strategic response and identifies questions that require specialist review.

There is no line authority and no executive responsibility in this engagement. Executives own the scenarios they submit and the actions they implement; the committee makes its own decisions. The adviser is neither a director nor a substitute for a regulated control owner. Renewal requires a written committee-chair recommendation and board approval after assessment of the final quarter's contribution. Further scenario challenge needs a fresh written engagement limited to twelve months, with its scope, reserved capacity and retainer newly agreed against the committee's remaining resilience decisions.

Concurrent work is permitted where four-day monthly capacity remains protected and information barriers are credible. Retainers with a directly competing banking strategy team, financial interests linked to a proposal under review or access to opposing transaction parties require disclosure before discussion. The committee chair determines recusal or access restrictions; a conflict affecting the standing question may make continuation impractical.

What you will own

• Test whether each strategic scenario presents a coherent combination of demand, cost and execution assumptions, highlighting dependencies that isolated sensitivity charts conceal from the committee discussion.
• Challenge management's proposed response sequence by examining decision lead times, reversible commitments and the financial cost of postponement, recommending questions for the committee rather than instructing operating teams.
• Shape a scenario evidence checklist that distinguishes observed operating signals, approved specialist constraints and judgemental estimates, helping directors assess the strength of each strategic narrative.
• Probe the thresholds at which management would alter an investment, slow expansion or protect capacity, asking whether the trigger is measurable early enough to support the proposed response.
• Compare the rationale for preserving strategic options with the cost of maintaining them, drawing attention to cases where flexibility is claimed without explaining the resources it requires.
• Recommend improvements to committee challenge records so unresolved assumptions, dissenting views and specialist follow-up remain visible when the next strategic paper returns for discussion.
• Reflect on earlier scenario recommendations through a quarterly learning note, distinguishing inaccurate assumptions from execution variance without assuming responsibility for the management decisions that followed.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate substantial banking enterprise planning or strategic finance experience, including participation in senior scenario discussions whose conclusions influenced resource choices. Explain how you challenged a plausible numerical output because the underlying business response, timing or operating assumption was inconsistent, and identify the evidence that changed the committee's understanding.
• Show the ability to separate commercial scenario judgement from regulated model approval and independent risk responsibilities. Relevant experience includes working with treasury, risk and business specialists while preserving their ownership. You must recognise when a question requires formal specialist validation rather than turn broad planning experience into unwarranted authority over prudential conclusions.
• Provide examples of concise, independent board or committee advice that made a difficult decision clearer without prescribing operational action. The appointment calls for listening, careful question construction and transparent uncertainty. Describe an occasion when your challenge remained unresolved and how you ensured it was accurately recorded rather than softened to achieve superficial agreement.
• Establish sufficient protected monthly capacity, timely written response habits and a workable conflict discipline. Disclose concurrent sector retainers, relevant investments and advisory relationships that could compromise neutral discussion. Experience handling sensitive financial planning material should include practical access boundaries and recusal judgement, not a reliance on confidentiality undertakings alone.

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 9 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-ADV-2026-IND-186.