Finance Service Transition and Vendor Governance Director

The mandate

The Finance Service Transition and Vendor Governance Director will own the permanent discipline for moving finance work into or between service arrangements and governing delivery after acceptance. The role must prevent transition teams, retained finance and providers from defining success differently. It joins readiness, commercial evidence, control, service outcomes and exit resilience in one accountable leadership portfolio.

In the first 100 days, the director will inventory live transitions and material service commitments, identify gaps between contracted measures and actual finance outcomes, and establish common acceptance standards. By month six, readiness gates and an evidence-led vendor review should operate. By month twelve, priority transitions must be stable, hidden retained effort visible and provider incentives aligned with durable resolution.

The director has authority over transition governance, finance-side acceptance recommendations, service review standards and the central vendor-governance team. The role may pause a wave or withhold acceptance where evidence is deficient. Procurement owns formal commercial authority, process leaders own design, controllers own accounting and control decisions, and operating leaders own daily delivery.

Vendor performance will be judged through close, cash, accuracy, recurrence, control and retained-work outcomes, not contracted averages alone. A resolved ticket that returns, a low unit price supported by unpriced retained work, or a transition achieved through permanent manual controls will be challenged. Contract mechanisms should support—not replace—accountable operating relationships.

The permanent agenda also includes resilience and exit. Each critical service should have knowledge, data, access, continuity and transition-back provisions that can work in practice. The director will build internal negotiation, service and transition capability so governance does not depend on one provider relationship or external adviser.

What you will own

• Create an acceptance scorecard covering operating stability, instructions, authorised access, control performance, learning proof, service capacity and the residual responsibilities of retained finance.
• Exercise authority to pause waves or withhold finance acceptance recommendations where objective readiness is inadequate.
• Connect vendor measures to close, cash, control, recurrence, retained effort and stakeholder consequence.
• Identify commercial measures or incentives that reward transfer, speed or ticket closure at the expense of sustainable outcomes.
• Quantify hidden retained work and require an explicit remove, fund, transfer or own decision.
• Test continuity and exit provisions for critical finance services rather than relying on contractual wording alone.
• Lead the central transition and vendor-governance team and develop capable deputies.
• Produce a first-year value, risk and resilience account supporting renewal, remediation or exit decisions.

Candidate qualifications

• Show permanent leadership across finance service transition and post-transition vendor governance.
• Provide an example of withholding acceptance despite contractual or timetable pressure and the evidence later required.
• Demonstrate how you connected service measures to finance outcomes and exposed retained shadow work.
• Evidence constructive partnership with procurement while preserving finance accountability for service and control consequence.
• Describe a vendor incentive or measure you changed because it drove superficial closure or transferred effort.
• Bring practical experience testing continuity, knowledge and exit readiness for a critical finance service.
• Show development of internal governance capability beyond personal provider relationships.

Working terms and boundaries

• This is a full-time permanent appointment owning transition standards, finance acceptance recommendations and vendor-governance capability.
• Procurement retains contracting authority; process, accounting, control and daily operations remain with designated owners.
• The director may pause transition or withhold acceptance but cannot amend contracts or waive controls unilaterally.
• First-year evaluation covers transition stability, retained effort, service value, commercial alignment, resilience and talent depth.
• Long-term incentives follow approved plan, performance and vesting 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-LIS-46.