Vice President, FP&A and Network Investment — Trade Logistics

The mandate

A trade logistics business has reached the point where annual budgets cannot answer whether the next rupee should fund gateway capacity, handling capability or a new customer corridor. Financial plans are accurate at entity level but obscure the dependencies between utilisation, service reliability and collection cycles. The vice president will give investment decisions a common economic language while preserving the operational distinctions that make each network choice different.

During the first eighteen months, the planning team must establish driver-based forecasts and a portfolio of investment cases with explicit trigger points. Employment is open-ended, with continuing accountability beyond that initial planning agenda. Twelve analysts and regional finance partners will support the role; regular gateway visits will test the relationship between reported throughput and usable capacity before capital requests enter the investment committee.

The vice president controls planning assumptions, forecast challenge and investment appraisal standards. Approved capital deployment remains with the authorised executives, while operating leaders retain service and workforce decisions. Where a case depends on future customer commitments, the finance recommendation must distinguish binding volumes from sales expectations and show what happens if ramp-up is delayed. A favourable payback calculation alone will not be sufficient evidence.

The enduring responsibility is a decision process that learns from actual investment outcomes. Post-investment reviews should identify mistaken assumptions without becoming retrospective blame exercises. The role excludes fleet engineering specification, statutory reporting ownership and direct customer sales management. It includes the authority to withhold finance endorsement when capacity constraints, working-capital demands or hidden support costs make an expansion case incomplete.

What you will own

• Design a network planning model that connects shipment mix, usable handling capacity, regional support cost and cash conversion, preserving the distinction between measured drivers and management assumptions in every decision output.
• Recommend the order of gateway and corridor investments under constrained capital, comparing incremental contribution, ramp-up risk and funding demand rather than ranking projects solely by standalone headline returns.
• Establish a forecast challenge process that tests customer volume promises against committed contracts and operating capability, escalating material disagreements with a documented range rather than forcing an artificial single-point consensus.
• Build investment committee papers with explicit stop, defer and expand triggers, naming the evidence required to release each subsequent capital tranche and the executive responsible for observing it.
• Evaluate completed capacity additions against their original assumptions, separating market change from execution shortcomings and correcting future appraisal rules when recurring optimism appears in ramp-up or cost estimates.
• Lead regional planning managers toward decision-quality analysis, improving how they explain sensitivities and challenge operational inputs while maintaining reconciliation to approved financial plans and avoiding parallel unofficial performance numbers.

Candidate qualifications

• Have built FP&A or strategic finance capability during an 18–22-year career in logistics, trade or a comparable distributed operating business. Show an investment allocation decision you influenced with evidence, including an option you recommended delaying or rejecting. The requirement is judgement across competing uses of capital, not simply ownership of annual budgeting deadlines.
• Demonstrate driver-based forecasting that links operational constraints to profit and cash. You must explain how capacity utilisation, product or customer mix and collection timing interacted in a model you personally developed or governed. Evidence of reconciliation, assumption version control and changes after operational challenge will be examined alongside the apparent accuracy of the final forecast.
• Bring credible leadership of planning specialists and business partners, including the ability to make uncertain assumptions discussable without obscuring accountability. Describe a situation where executive enthusiasm exceeded verified demand and how you preserved a constructive decision process. Experience with board-level financial reporting should include concise alternatives, consequences and identifiable approval routes.
• Possess a sound finance education and practical understanding of investment appraisal, funding constraints and management accounting. Digital modelling or AI-assisted analysis can improve workflow, but you must be able to validate calculations and explain conclusions without relying on a tool's authority. Travel to operational sites and direct engagement with capacity owners are necessary parts of this leadership role.

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 13 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-094.