Global Direct Tax Provision Governance Director

The mandate

This appointment owns the policy, evidence and executive interpretation behind the global direct-tax provision. The central problem is not producing a quarterly number; it is ensuring that current tax, deferred tax, uncertain positions and effective-rate movements rest on one governed view of facts. The Director must make the provision both technically defensible and useful to decision makers without obscuring judgment behind consolidation mechanics.

The first quarter will establish a risk-ranked map of provision inputs, review rights and recurring adjustments. Local tax owners will retain responsibility for jurisdictional facts, while this role sets the evidence standard, challenges recognition and measurement, and determines whether a position is ready to enter the consolidated tax result. Differences between accounting frameworks, filed returns and forecast assumptions must become traceable rather than reconciled by undocumented overlays.

The Director has authority to issue provision instructions, require position papers, reject unsupported tax packs and convene formal judgment reviews. Final reserved conclusions remain with the Global Head of Tax and the appropriate financial-reporting governance body. Compliance execution, indirect tax and legal-entity secretarial work sit outside the role, although dependencies affecting the provision must be identified and assigned.

By month twelve, the tax note, effective-rate bridge and deferred-tax analysis should tell the same economic story. Success will be evidenced by fewer late provision changes, timely reassessment of uncertain positions, transparent ownership of deferred-tax recoverability, and a team able to explain the result without relying on one technical expert.

What you will own

• Publish a global provision standard covering data lineage, materiality, review depth, recognition thresholds, currency treatment and the evidence required for every material judgment.
• Establish a quarterly tax-judgment forum with recorded facts, alternatives, authority, dissent, expiry triggers and named responsibility for subsequent reassessment.
• Reconstruct the effective-tax-rate bridge so that structural, jurisdictional, discrete and forecast movements reconcile to controlled source evidence.
• Approve deferred-tax-asset recognition only where forecast utilisation, expiry, reversal pattern and sensitivity evidence meet the published threshold.
• Direct a complete inventory of uncertain tax positions and require event-driven reassessment when facts, law, audit posture or settlement expectations change.
• Integrate current and deferred tax forecasting into the financial outlook without allowing forecast expedience to override accounting recognition principles.
• Present the provision's principal judgments and range of outcomes to senior finance governance in language that separates accounting conclusion from cash-tax exposure.
• Develop two technical successors capable of chairing a provision review, challenging local submissions and defending the consolidated position independently.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 16 years in direct tax accounting and reporting, including Director-level ownership of a multi-jurisdiction provision under IFRS and demonstrable familiarity with US GAAP differences.
• Personally authored evidence on deferred-tax recoverability, tax-rate changes, outside-basis differences and uncertain positions that survived external-audit and governance challenge.
• A quantified example of reducing late provision volatility by correcting ownership, evidence or process—not by moving judgment into an opaque central reserve.
• Strong command of IAS 12, IFRIC 23, tax-effect accounting, valuation allowances, rate reconciliation and the relationship between return-to-provision adjustments and forecasting.
• Experience challenging senior tax and finance leaders where commercial expectations conflicted with recognition or measurement requirements.
• Evidence of building a provision-control framework across different local capabilities while preserving accountability for jurisdictional facts.
• Board-level communication skill demonstrated through concise treatment of uncertainty, cash exposure, accounting sensitivity and disclosure implications.

Working terms and boundaries

• The role is an ongoing appointment with formal first-year reviews after the initial diagnostic, two quarter closes and the first complete annual provision cycle.
• Authority covers provision policy, evidence gates and consolidated recommendation; statutory filing sign-off and reserved accounting approval remain with their named owners.
• The published annual package comprises fixed pay, target incentive and conditional long-term awards; no transaction completion payment is implied.
• Hybrid attendance will concentrate around provision closes, technical judgment sessions and financial-reporting governance, with scheduled travel when evidence cannot be resolved remotely.
• First-year completion requires a controlled provision model, a current judgment register, reconciled disclosures, trained deputies and documented improvement against the opening risk baseline.

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 5 October 2026. Mandate reference TAX-PER-2026-LON-01.