Vice President, Regional Controllership — Computing Hardware Channels

The mandate

Computing hardware sold through distributors can remain exposed to return rights, price protection and inventory obligations after the initial shipment. Regional accounting teams currently handle those conditions with different evidence and estimation practices. This vice president will own controllership across the assigned entities, ensuring the close reflects the substance of channel arrangements and that unresolved exposure is not hidden by apparently strong shipment performance or a convenient release of provisions.

The VP appointment is permanent and open-ended; priorities over its first eighteen months include a reliable channel-accounting record, stronger estimate review and a repeatable regional close. Thirty-one professionals work through five country controllers and central specialists. Bengaluru is the leadership base, with selected entity visits and regional review travel. Local controllers retain statutory responsibilities, supported by qualified advisers where jurisdiction-specific interpretation is required.

The leader sets regional accounting controls, approves supported finance judgements within delegation and may require additional evidence before material entries are posted. Product warranty terms, distributor contract changes and inventory disposal commitments need their designated commercial, technical or executive approval. The VP must distinguish the accounting consequence of a service obligation from the technical assessment of whether a product has failed. Neither a sales preference nor an engineering estimate is sufficient on its own to establish the appropriate financial treatment.

The role includes regional audit coordination, balance-sheet governance and development of controller capability. It excludes product engineering, commercial channel appointment and professional tax opinion. Success should be apparent when a reviewer can trace a material return, price-protection or warranty estimate from contract and operating evidence into the accounts, and when the team can explain subsequent differences without relying on undocumented quarter-end interventions. The continuing remit is dependable regional controllership, not only a one-time clean-up of aged balances.

What you will own

• Establish a channel-accounting evidence register linking return rights, price protection and material service terms to their accounting treatment, identifying where contract records or operating evidence are too weak to support existing assumptions.
• Govern inventory and return exposure reviews using verified stock status, ageing and subsequent activity, distinguishing a recoverable commercial holding from product that requires an impairment or disposition decision by its authorised owner.
• Approve supported regional warranty and channel estimates within delegation, testing underlying assumptions and preserving specialist inputs so material movements cannot be justified solely by their effect on the quarter's reported margin.
• Lead regional close and balance-sheet review through the country controllers, requiring source reconciliation, judgement ownership and timely escalation while eliminating recurring exceptions that are repeatedly described as temporary timing differences.
• Coordinate audit responses with complete decision records and evidence, separating a legitimate unresolved technical question from missing documentation and assigning a responsible route for each without transferring management ownership to auditors.
• Review financial-system access and posting controls with technology and assurance specialists, checking whether effective segregation and review survive local operating workarounds rather than accepting nominal role definitions as sufficient proof.
• Coach country controllers to defend accounting conclusions, investigate subsequent settlement differences and communicate uncomfortable exposure constructively to commercial leaders before urgent close deadlines narrow the available decisions.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate a finance career of at least 28 years with senior controllership or accounting leadership in computing hardware, technology distribution, industrial equipment or a comparable product-channel business. Show personal responsibility for a regional or multi-entity close and a judgement involving returns, inventory or warranty exposure. The evidence must identify the records examined and your decision, not merely successful completion of an audit timetable.
• Bring recognised accounting or management-accounting training with substantial applied financial-reporting competence. Explain how contract terms, operating estimates and subsequent events interacted in a material provision or revenue-related conclusion. A particular statutory-auditor designation is not compulsory; the role requires defensible management judgement and the ability to obtain authoritative accounting or legal advice where the actual arrangement demands it.
• Have led controllers or senior accountants across different entities, maintaining local responsibility while resolving inconsistent regional methods. Describe a case where common treatment was appropriate and another where a legitimate local difference had to remain. You must make that distinction understandable to executives and reviewers without allowing every disagreement to become an undocumented exception or an unnecessary central override.
• Demonstrate finance governance and system-control judgement, including access, posting approval and independent review. Assurance or information-systems credentials are useful when supported by actual control examination. Direct engagement with country teams, careful handling of channel information and the willingness to challenge a favourable estimate are essential. Technical product diagnosis and jurisdiction-specific tax interpretation must remain with the qualified owners rather than being claimed as broad controller authority.

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 15 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-232.