Project Risk Committee Adviser — Claim Confidence and Cash Resilience

The mandate

An EPC project risk committee repeatedly returns to a difficult question: how much cash resilience does the business actually have when part of its outlook depends on claims not yet agreed with customers? Contract teams may have a credible position, accounting may have an authorised reporting treatment, and treasury may still need a prudent collection assumption. Those conclusions answer different questions. The adviser will challenge the committee's confidence and timing logic, helping directors understand the consequences of relying on a claim without becoming the legal negotiator, accounting approver or finance executive responsible for the outcome.

The retainer begins on 26 October 2026 for twelve months. Four monthly working days support evidence review and sponsor discussions, with quarterly committee attendance outside that allocation and paid within the monthly retainer. Ad-hoc written questions receive a reasoned response or a defined evidence request within three business days. Month ten brings a chair and group CFO renewal decision; continuation requires their authorisation of a separate written term no longer than twelve months and a fresh arrangement for review capacity and monthly remuneration. Extra investigations, settlement support or operational work require a separately agreed scope; the engagement is not an unlimited availability commitment disguised as occasional committee attendance.

The adviser has no line authority in the EPC organisation and no executive responsibility for claims, cash forecasting or accounting records. You recommend questions and alternative downside views; commercial and legal owners retain entitlement and negotiation, controllers retain recognition and disclosure, and executives own funding decisions. No board office or fiduciary appointment is offered. A committee challenge must not become an instruction to book recovery, postpone an obligation or pressure a customer. Its value lies in exposing the confidence chain and the decision consequences that the authorised owners must consider.

The maintained advisory record should separate claimed amount, accepted entitlement evidence, negotiation state, reporting conclusion and forecast collection timing. It should identify which assumption would fail first under a delayed or reduced recovery, and whether the business has a funded response. The role is primarily remote with scheduled Mumbai committee meetings. Up to two other noncompeting retainers are permitted; work for an opposing contracting party, claims intermediary or adviser paid on settlement success is incompatible. Other project-finance interests must be disclosed before engagement and reviewed whenever a new commercial relationship affects independence or available capacity.

What you will own

• Challenge the committee's chain from claimed amount to forecast cash through documented evidence and timing assumptions, identifying where a commercial belief or reporting conclusion is being used to answer a different finance question.
• Test downside reliance on delayed or reduced claim recovery with sponsor-supplied project exposures, recommending questions about funded response without deciding treasury actions or directing changes to the operating cash forecast.
• Examine changes in negotiation state and accepted entitlement evidence, asking whether confidence has genuinely changed or the committee has merely received a revised target date without a new supporting fact.
• Shape discussion of authorised accounting conclusions and cash collection assumptions, preserving the controller's professional decision while exposing when committee papers imply that recognition guarantees recovery amount or timing.
• Recommend escalation questions for claims whose expected recovery supports new commitments, highlighting the consequence of an adverse scenario rather than approving the commitment or negotiating a settlement condition.
• Review management's answers to prior committee challenges through retained assumptions and new evidence, distinguishing an improved confidence chain from a restated optimistic conclusion or completed administrative action.
• Maintain a concise advisory reasoning record and current conflict declarations, enabling the chair to revisit the evidence and reserved decisions without treating the adviser's judgement as a contractual, legal or accounting certification.

Candidate qualifications

• Describe senior project-finance judgement in oil and gas EPC, infrastructure or comparable long-duration contracting where claim confidence and cash timing differed. Explain the evidence for entitlement, the reporting position and the collection assumption as separate considerations. Your example must show a personally reasoned challenge that changed executive reliance or downside planning, not a claim to have guaranteed a settlement or replaced the authorised legal and accounting owners.
• Translate sponsor-supplied commercial and accounting conclusions into precise cash-risk questions through applied professional finance competence. A 28+ year career with substantial VP, business-finance or project-finance leadership should provide the treasury, planning and P&L judgement behind that translation. Explain how you used specialist evidence without overstating its implication, and how senior decision-makers understood the resulting uncertainty while retaining their own operating and professional responsibilities.
• Show how you compared alternative recovery timing or amount assumptions without treating all uncertainty as either certain loss or certain collection. Identify the evidence threshold, funded exposure and decision consequence that mattered. A strong candidate recognises that an approved accounting conclusion can coexist with a conservative cash view, and that new negotiation activity is not itself proof that the forecast recovery date or amount has become reliable.
• Protect four monthly working days, quarterly attendance and the three-business-day response commitment. Demonstrate constructive challenge of senior commercial and finance stakeholders without conducting their negotiation or changing their records. Disclose opposing-party work, settlement-contingent interests and other commitments affecting independence. Confidential contract handling, clear hypotheses and resistance to success-fee incentives are essential to a twelve-month retainer focused on committee judgement rather than personal participation in the claim outcome.

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 12 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-ADV-2026-IND-173.