Market Research Finance and Cash Governance Director — Interim

The mandate

The interim director will hold the finance seat for nine months. A completed research activity may not yet support revenue recognition or collection, and a margin forecast may omit unresolved scope effort. The role restores evidenced decisions without taking ownership of research quality or assuming group CFO authority.

The nine-month cover starts on 19 October 2026. A permanent director search proceeds concurrently, and five days weekly are required from Delhi NCR with scheduled regional finance sessions. Initial work must reconcile contract conditions, project status and cost-to-complete assumptions, then identify which cash and reporting exposures require immediate delegated action.

Handover requires reliable project-finance reviews, authorised revenue judgements and cash scenarios whose drivers can be independently reproduced. The successor must lead a project exception meeting and approve a representative delegated close judgement. Closure does not require all overdue balances to be collected; it requires a stable transferred operation and clear ownership of remaining contract exposures.

The director may reject unsupported close submissions, allocate existing finance capacity and approve entries within the regional CFO's delegation. Policy changes, new financing and permanent senior appointments require executive approval. Research owners retain methodological and delivery acceptance, and commercial owners retain contract negotiation; finance cannot declare a deliverable accepted solely to improve the reporting outlook.

Research-product strategy, enterprise technology replacement and regulatory representation are excluded. The sponsor supplies authorised contracts, project evidence, ledger records and nominated delivery contacts. The role needs finance-director control and commercial judgement, able to distinguish an operationally completed task from a financially supportable result.

What you will own

• Decide delegated project-finance treatments using contract and delivery evidence, distinguishing operational activity from a supported revenue or collection consequence before reporting.
• Establish the project margin bridge with remaining-cost and scope assumptions, preserving the original case so later forecasts explain rather than erase deterioration.
• Set cash scenarios around contractual acceptance and collection conditions, identifying when an overdue balance reflects finance process, delivery evidence or unresolved commercial terms.
• Approve close readiness within delegation, escalating material unsupported revenue or cost judgements to the regional CFO before management relies on the results.
• Reallocate existing finance analysts toward consequential contract exposures, documenting the review work deferred and the specific risk accepted by the authorised owner.
• Chair project exception meetings with research and commercial owners, preserving their methodological and contractual authorities while securing a clear financial conclusion.
• Transfer the project review pack, judgement archive and cash governance rhythm through live successor decisions, confirming ownership of residual exposures before exit.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate finance-director or equivalent financial-control leadership in market research, professional services or another project-based business. Explain a revenue or margin judgement you personally reviewed, the contract and delivery evidence used and the approval boundary retained by a regional CFO.
• Show practical project-finance competence through remaining-cost, scope and collection analysis. Candidates should describe a project that looked complete operationally but still carried a material financial obligation, and show how the outlook changed.
• Evidence control and close judgement under reporting pressure. Provide a case where missing delivery or commercial support prevented an approval, explaining the temporary treatment and escalation rather than claiming every issue was resolved before deadline.
• Demonstrate leadership across research, commercial and finance interfaces without assuming authority over methodological quality or contract negotiation. Explain how competing accounts were reconciled and what remained unresolved.
• Provide durable transfer proof and professional accounting capability. Show how a successor could reproduce a project judgement and update cash scenarios from retained source records. Candidates should explain how an inherited unsupported assumption was kept visible through later periods, how the authorised decision owner was identified and why administratively clearing an exception would not establish reliable financial control.

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 PCT-INT-2026-IND-17.