India Market-Entry Finance and Tax Adviser — Industrial AI Hardware

The mandate

The board has not resolved whether India should begin as a distributor-led market, a wholly owned sales-and-service entity or a phased assembly platform with local incentives. Each route changes permanent-establishment exposure, customs value, transfer pricing, cash repatriation, customer contracting and working capital, yet current papers compare only topline growth and headline tax rates.

The adviser will reserve four days monthly, combining two Riyadh working days with remote analysis and alternate-month field visits split between Mumbai and Delhi NCR. A monthly Strategy Committee meeting is included, management may seek short ad-hoc views with a two-business-day response expectation, and Bengaluru specialist sessions may replace one remote day by prior agreement. Additional execution support is outside the retainer.

The term is fixed at eight months, covering entry-option selection, board approval, launch-control design and the first commercial readiness review. A three-month renewal may be approved by the board in month seven only if a documented regulatory or incentive process remains unfinished; ordinary implementation slippage is not a basis to prolong the appointment.

The adviser provides challenge and informed recommendations but holds no line authority, director vote or executive responsibility in India or Saudi Arabia. Management will appoint entities, sign filings, choose advisers, negotiate leases and approve contracts; the adviser cannot represent the group before tax authorities, bind either entity or direct launch employees.

Any concurrent mandate for an Indian industrial-automation competitor, hardware distributor, proposed joint-venture partner, site provider or incentive intermediary would conflict. Other Gulf-to-India work must be declared with client identity and scope before engagement, and investments in prospective channel partners must be disclosed immediately. The chair will determine whether safeguards are credible.

Why the board wants this voice

The board understands the product and Saudi operating base but lacks a member who has built a controlled India footprint from an international parent. External advisers have supplied isolated legal and tax answers without integrating them into an economic choice. A seasoned finance voice is needed to expose second-order cash and governance effects before the entry route becomes difficult to reverse.

What you will own

• Test the distributor, wholly owned and phased-assembly cases against after-tax cash, control, speed, customer eligibility, localisation and exit flexibility.
• Challenge the proposed entity and contracting chain for permanent-establishment, place-of-effective-management, withholding, indirect-tax and customs consequences.
• Shape a funding and repatriation position spanning equity, intercompany debt, service charges, royalties, guarantees, dividends and exchange-control constraints.
• Press management to quantify incentives only when eligibility, compliance cost, clawback conditions and cash timing are supported by accountable evidence.
• Review transfer-pricing assumptions against the people, inventory, warranty, data and market-development risks that the India organisation will actually control.
• Guide the board on launch-stage delegations, bank authority, payment controls, statutory calendars and finance capability needed before the first customer contract.
• Frame each Strategy Committee decision in a concise option paper containing economics, tax uncertainty, reversible steps and matters requiring local opinion.

Candidate qualifications

• Served as regional CFO, international tax director, India finance leader or board adviser through at least one greenfield India market entry by a foreign parent.
• Can evidence an entity-route decision that integrated commercial control, permanent-establishment, customs, indirect tax, transfer pricing and repatriation effects.
• Structured cross-border funding and cash return under Indian exchange-control rules, including documented trade-offs among debt, equity and service arrangements.
• Built or challenged business cases for Indian manufacturing, assembly, localisation or incentive programmes using realised cash timing and compliance obligations.
• Advised Gulf-based decision makers and India operators without blurring board counsel, local professional opinion and management execution.
• Identified a material entry assumption that management or a specialist adviser had missed and can show how the board changed its decision.

Non-negotiables

• Can commit four advisory days monthly and undertake the specified travel to Mumbai and Delhi NCR across the eight-month term.
• Will disclose all India market-entry clients, distributor relationships, proposed-partner interests and relevant investments before appointment.
• Accepts a non-executive remit with no authority to sign filings, bind entities, appoint vendors or direct launch personnel.
• Brings board-level finance and tax judgment grounded in executed India entries, not solely research, policy or generic expansion strategy.

1. 49 words maximum. Which current client, board or investment might require disclosure for this mandate, and why?
2. 49 words maximum. Name one India entry-route decision you influenced and the cash or tax assumption that changed it.
3. 49 words maximum. Confirm whether alternate-month Mumbai and Delhi NCR travel fits your existing advisory calendar.