Finance Automation and Controls Director

The mandate

The Finance Automation and Controls Director will own the permanent discipline for automating finance work without disconnecting it from accounting ownership or control evidence. The role is intended to replace opportunistic scripts and isolated productivity claims with a governed portfolio in which every automation has an accountable process owner, controlled inputs, monitored outcomes and a credible retirement route.

In the first 90 days, the director will inventory material finance automations and proposed use cases, identify unsupported dependencies and separate true automation from work simply moved elsewhere. By month six, a common intake, risk classification and life-cycle control should be operating. By month twelve, priority automations must show verified capacity, quality or control outcomes while high-risk unsupported tools have been remediated or retired.

The director has authority to set finance automation standards, require control evidence, sequence the portfolio and pause a release that lacks testing, ownership or contingency. Process leaders remain accountable for finance outcomes, technology leaders for approved production architecture, and control owners for formal conclusions. The role must unite those accountabilities at each design and release decision.

Automation value will be measured after allowing for monitoring, exception handling, retained review and failure recovery. A faster task that creates unexplained exceptions or fragile key-person dependence is not a successful outcome. The director will create value-assurance rules and require post-release evidence rather than accepting projected hours as realised benefit.

Longer term, this leader will build a capable internal practice spanning process diagnosis, control design, responsible use of advanced automation, release governance and operational monitoring. The organisation should gain repeatable judgement and safe scale, not permanent dependence on one tool, provider or charismatic technical specialist.

What you will own

• Establish an authoritative register of finance automations, owners, inputs, outputs, control reliance, monitoring, contingencies and retirement conditions.
• Implement risk-tiered intake and release gates covering process stability, data quality, testing, access, evidence and operational support.
• Exercise authority to pause finance automation releases that lack accountable ownership or adequate failure containment.
• Reassess business cases using net capacity, exception effort, monitoring cost, quality change and control consequence.
• Remediate or retire material unsupported automations, preserving continuity and evidence during transition.
• Introduce post-release reviews that compare actual performance with baseline and require owners to address drift or unplanned work.
• Develop an internal capability model with clear roles for finance process, controls, technology and automation specialists.
• Deliver a first-year value and risk report that reconciles claimed outcomes and identifies the next portfolio choices.

Candidate qualifications

• Show permanent leadership of a finance automation portfolio with accountability for controls, value and operating resilience.
• Provide an example of stopping an attractive automation because process, data or control readiness was insufficient.
• Demonstrate how you measured net benefit after including exception handling, monitoring, retained review and failure recovery.
• Bring depth in finance processes and control intent alongside sufficient technical judgement to challenge design and release evidence.
• Describe remediation or retirement of a fragile automation without disrupting close, payment or reporting continuity.
• Evidence the ability to build internal capability and resist dependence on a specific provider or platform.
• Show practical governance for advanced automation where outputs require human judgement, traceability or bounded use.

Working terms and boundaries

• This is a full-time permanent role with authority over finance automation standards, portfolio sequencing and readiness recommendations.
• Process outcomes, accounting judgements, technology architecture and formal control ownership remain with designated leaders.
• The director may pause an inadequately evidenced release but cannot grant production access or bypass enterprise change controls.
• First-year evaluation includes net realised value, risk reduction, portfolio health, capability depth and safe retirement of unsupported tools.
• Long-term incentive awards are governed by applicable vesting, performance and approval rules.

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 7 October 2026. Mandate reference FNA-PER-2026-DUB-14.