Audit Committee Adviser — Digital Finance Control Evidence

The mandate

Directors are receiving more favourable finance-automation metrics but less clarity about how material exceptions are reviewed. A control can process transactions consistently while applying an inappropriate rule or allowing the same privileged user to alter and approve its operation. This adviser will challenge the evidence presented to the audit committee, asking whether automated finance remains understandable, reviewable and accountable when the workflow encounters a case outside its normal demonstration conditions.

The nine-month term begins on 26 October 2026 with four days reserved monthly for evidence review, written observations and discussions with the chair. Quarterly audit committee attendance is included. Review of a complete bounded control package is returned within six business days; missing material records are identified within two. Extra system coverage, additional attendance and exceptional site work require a separately agreed reservation. The fee does not buy an unrestricted review of every technology control in the organisation.

The adviser has no line authority within finance or technology and no executive responsibility for automated postings, system access or remediation execution. Management retains those controls, internal assurance owns its testing and external auditors determine their independent opinions. The advisory contribution is to test the sufficiency and meaning of committee evidence. A control described as effective should show how exceptions are detected, who reviews them and whether that person has enough information and independence to make a responsible decision.

The audit committee chair reviews unresolved control-evidence questions after the final assessment. Any renewal requires a new written agreement authorised by the board for a maximum twelve-month term, with the review reservation and monthly fee reconsidered and agreed. Concurrent non-competing work may continue if monthly capacity and response commitments are protected. Interests in an automation vendor, implementation partner or competing client using confidential design information require disclosure and can prevent appointment. The remit excludes statutory audit signing, cybersecurity certification and directing employees. Advice must identify questions needing qualified technical review without representing a confidential committee challenge as comprehensive assurance over the enterprise system estate.

What you will own

• Challenge committee claims about automated control effectiveness against actual source records and exception paths, asking whether the demonstrated normal case represents the material transaction types and operating conditions directors need to understand.
• Examine the financial consequence of rule changes, privileged access and override use, identifying questions for management and assurance where evidence does not establish independent approval or a reliable history of consequential changes.
• Shape a committee evidence framework that distinguishes process completion, accounting correctness and effective review, helping directors avoid treating a high automation percentage as proof that the underlying financial judgement is controlled.
• Question how unusual or incomplete transactions reach qualified reviewers, highlighting whether workflow design merely produces an exception queue or supports timely decisions with sufficient evidence and accountable ownership.
• Advise on the priorities management should explain in its remediation response, comparing financial consequence and evidence weakness while leaving resource allocation, implementation and formal assurance testing with their authorised owners.
• Review follow-up papers for proof of changed control operation, challenging closure based only on installed features or training completion and asking the committee to distinguish demonstrated improvement from an untested management assertion.

Candidate qualifications

• Bring a finance career of at least 28 years with substantive accounting, controllership or governance responsibility and experience examining digital finance controls. Technology, hardware or internationally connected industrial operations provide relevant complexity. Describe a case where an automated process performed as designed but produced an inadequately supported financial result, identifying the distinction between system operation and accountable accounting judgement.
• Demonstrate professional accounting or management-accounting competence with applied information-systems assurance knowledge. A recognised assurance credential or equivalent substantial control-review experience is expected. You must understand access, change approval and independent review well enough to challenge evidence, while recognising the circumstances that require specialist cybersecurity, engineering or legal expertise rather than presenting broad finance knowledge as universal technical certification.
• Have communicated specific control limitations to senior governance audiences without either exaggerating the finding or accepting an unsupported management explanation. Show how you made the financial consequence, missing evidence and required authoritative input clear. The role asks for disciplined advisory challenge; it does not grant authority to sign an external audit opinion, direct internal assurance staff or approve management's system remediation.
• Maintain independence from vendors and implementation interests, disclosing related investments and concurrent engagements before receiving records. Protect four monthly days for preparation and the included committee cadence, with reliable availability for the stated response obligation. Confidentiality must extend to control designs and unresolved findings, and the adviser must remain comfortable leaving executive decisions with management even when the committee does not adopt the recommendation.

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 CVU-ADV-2026-IND-236.