Interim Finance Director, Middle East Advisory

Outcomes that will define success

• Within 90 days, agree one economic baseline and named owners across all 11 countries.
• Within 9 months, reduce unresolved forecast and control exceptions by 19% from the agreed baseline.
• Within 18 months, evidence $8 million of annual value without weakening regulatory or fiduciary controls.

Core responsibilities and decision rights

• Own the finance authority required to make regional growth accountable for cash and delivery leverage.
• Decide the planning, reporting and evidence standards used across the 11-country scope.
• Set the capital and resource cases that may reach Regional Managing Partner.
• Stop commitments that preserve country-specific partner scorecards without measurable economic or control evidence.
• Decline investment requests whose value owner, delivery dependency or downside remains unnamed.
• Choose the sequence for regional expansion and expose dependencies before funding is committed.
• Determine the finance leadership accountabilities and escalation routes needed for Saudi and regional finance decisions.

Candidate profile

You have led regional expansion where finance carried the operating consequence, not merely the reporting calendar. You have worked at or above $470 million of revenue and across at least 6 countries, with direct accountability for forecasts, controls and capital choices. You can show where your judgement stopped a weak commitment as well as where it released investment. Planning, control, capital and commercial choices must be judged together. You have owned planning and forecasting at scale, connected control evidence to commercial decisions, and explained unresolved gaps to a board without hiding behind functional language. You understand the economics of business advisory and the operating pressure created because new offices are winning mandates but senior staffing and collections are weakening the economic case. You can work across Saudi and regional finance decisions, challenge country-specific partner scorecards, and remain accountable through the full 18-month horizon. You will distinguish urgent decisions from hurried ones, protect controls that work, and make the cost of every exception visible.

Critical experience

• Geographic Expansion: The sponsor needs prior regional expansion where the financial consequences reached the board.
• Geographic Expansion: Experience of regional expansion matters because new offices are winning mandates but senior staffing and collections are weakening the economic case.
• Turnaround: Prior turnaround and distress recovery gives the leader a tested reference point for changing country-specific partner scorecards.

Required leadership capabilities

• FP&A and forecasting — level 4: Recognised authority in planning and forecasting is needed because the first decisions depend on a trusted economic baseline.
• Controls and reporting — level 3: The leader must connect reporting evidence with the operating choices that finance is expected to challenge.
• Capital allocation — level 3: Capital allocation judgement determines which commitments continue when the portfolio exceeds available capacity.
• Board and stakeholder leadership — level 3: Board-level finance choices require concise explanation of trade-offs, consequences and unresolved gaps.

Scope and operating context

• Comparable experience should include responsibility for at least $470 million revenue, $305 million P&L, 1700 colleagues, and 6 countries.
• Principal leadership interfaces: Audit committees.
• Direct-report scope: Financial planning and analysis, Controllership, Treasury, Tax, Business finance, Finance transformation
• Candidates may be considered from: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Doha, Qatar.
• Relocation support is available. Sponsor-supported work authorisation may be considered for qualifying candidates.

This mandate is unlikely to be right if

• You need country-specific partner scorecards to remain untouched while accountability changes around it.
• You prefer advisory influence without ownership of the financial consequences attached to the work required to make regional growth accountable for cash and delivery leverage.
• You require complete information before making choices across 11 countries; the sponsor expects staged decisions under uncertainty.

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 14 December 2026. Mandate reference GBX-RUH-PROF-CFO-51.