Offshore Engineering Chief Financial Officer — Mobilisation and Project Cash

The mandate

An offshore engineering division is creating its own CFO seat as simultaneous programmes increase the cash consequences of mobilisation choices. Vessel availability, specialist crews and subcontracted marine work require commitments before the next customer milestone necessarily becomes billable. The business needs a finance chief who can connect those commitments to certified work and a credible collection timetable. Open-ended employment carries an eighteen-month initial agenda to establish divisional planning and financial decision discipline; the CFO's accountability continues as subsequent offshore programmes enter deployment.

Project progress and cash entitlement must be separated carefully. A vessel can be deployed and incur cost while a contractual milestone awaits inspection, documentation or customer certification. Weather-related changes may alter the operating sequence without automatically creating an enforceable claim. You will build a financial view that distinguishes certified receivables, unbilled eligible work, disputed entitlement and future expectations. Marine and engineering leaders determine safe deployment and achievable work windows; commercial and legal owners determine contract rights. Finance must make the cash consequences visible without treating either technical optimism or an unapproved claim as available liquidity.

Twenty-six finance professionals report through project finance, planning, treasury coordination and accounting leads. You approve ordinary project-finance commitments within delegated budgets, set cash priorities and require financial concurrence before mobilisation expenditure crosses its approved funding boundary. The managing director and group CFO reserve major charter commitments, new borrowing, guarantees and material contract departures; the board retains capital investment and strategy. The CFO does not direct vessel operations, certify offshore safety or replace engineering acceptance. Firm financial challenge should improve deployment decisions while leaving those professional responsibilities intact.

The first agenda should establish a mobilisation funding gate, project-linked cash exposure and escalation that shows what is committed before entitlement becomes collectible. Mumbai is the hybrid base with planned visits to mobilisation locations and selected overseas contract reviews. The ongoing institution must preserve commercial flexibility without relying on repeated emergency cash transfers between projects. Leaders should be able to compare an operationally acceptable resequencing with its cash cost, understand the effect of delayed certification and choose a funded course through the proper authority, rather than discovering the exposure after the vessel and suppliers have already been committed.

What you will own

• Establish mobilisation funding gates that connect approved vessel, crew and subcontractor commitments to collectible milestones, showing the finance decision required before expenditure moves beyond the project's funded operating boundary.
• Decide divisional cash priorities within delegated limits through project-linked committed exposure, distinguishing certified collections from disputed claims and refusing to fund new obligations on unsupported entitlement assumptions.
• Challenge resequencing proposals with marine and engineering owners through their approved operating scenarios, explaining incremental cash and margin consequences without presenting finance's preference as a safety or feasibility conclusion.
• Build certification and billing exposure reviews with commercial teams, identifying the document, inspection or customer action between completed work and enforceable billing rather than equating physical progress with collection readiness.
• Set project-finance escalation for weather delay, standby cost and customer change, preserving approved commercial treatment and highlighting where the financial plan relies on an unresolved contract interpretation.
• Develop project controllers who can distinguish obligation timing, work certification and cash receipt independently, strengthening the quality of recommendations brought to the managing director and group CFO.
• Present funded deployment alternatives and residual cash exposure to executive review, retaining board-reserved capital and borrowing decisions while making the consequence of each authorised course explicit for ongoing programmes.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate senior finance leadership in offshore engineering, oil and gas EPC or closely comparable capital-intensive project delivery. Explain a mobilisation or deployment decision where expenditure preceded customer entitlement, and identify the commitments, certification conditions and cash judgement you personally challenged. The candidate must understand project operating interfaces while respecting that marine safety, vessel command and engineering certification belong to authorised professionals.
• Establish executive finance standing through a 28+ year career and substantial VP, divisional finance-head or equivalent responsibility. Your professional accounting or advanced finance competence must be visible in P&L, treasury and reporting decisions, including effective use of qualified specialists for material conclusions. Show leadership of project-finance teams and a mobilisation-finance judgement that held within delegation when the business faced strong delivery pressure.
• Describe how you distinguished approved contractual receivables from unbilled eligible work, disputed claims and optimistic future recovery. Explain a case where that distinction changed mobilisation funding or executive escalation. You should collaborate effectively with commercial and legal owners, retain their contract conclusions, and avoid converting engineering progress or the existence of a customer discussion into a finance assertion of collectible cash.
• Show development of project controllers and sustained challenge of senior operational stakeholders under programme pressure. The CFO must compare funded alternatives without obstructing legitimate operating judgement, protect sensitive contract information and maintain clear reserved powers for guarantees, borrowing and investment. Mumbai-based hybrid leadership and purposeful project travel are required; evidence of an independent finance institution matters more than personal rescue of every distressed cash week.

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-168.