Principal EPC Finance Programme Director — Remaining-Cost Forecast Integrity

The mandate

An EPC finance organisation cannot consistently reproduce how project teams move from recorded expenditure to their forecast cost at completion. Procurement commitments, engineering estimates and accounting actuals use different cut-off dates, creating a risk that work is counted twice or omitted. The principal programme director will build a source-linked remaining-cost forecast method and its control pack. The five-month project starts on 26 October 2026 and ends on 26 March 2027 through artifact acceptance, not a favourable project margin or completion of construction.

The method must distinguish incurred cost, remaining committed cost and work that has not yet been contracted. A purchase-order balance is not automatically the cost still required: part may already be accrued, a scope change may have superseded the original quantity, or a commitment may include work outside the approved forecast perimeter. Engineering owners validate physical quantities and achievable work; procurement owns contractual commitment facts; the controller owns accounting treatment. The principal connects those authorised inputs and preserves uncertainty, rather than deciding technical productivity or silently substituting budget remaining for an evidenced estimate to finish.

By 11 December 2026, the first milestone delivers a cut-off and boundary diagnostic with reconciled sample work packages. The 29 January 2027 milestone provides the forecast method, versioned input structure and exception tests. Final acceptance on 26 March 2027 covers internal-led replay, change-review instructions and transfer of the maintained control pack. Fee release is 25%, 35% and 40%. Four weekly working days are reserved, and the sponsor supplies seven contributors, approved project estimates, commitment and actual-cost extracts, source owners and timely controller decisions on unresolved accounting questions.

The project finance executive and divisional controller jointly accept each stage. Tests include a cost moving from uncommitted forecast to purchase order, a received item accrued before invoicing, a cancelled balance and an approved quantity revision. Internal teams must reproduce the total and explain the movement between categories without double-counting or losing the prior forecast. Missing technical evidence must remain an owned exception, not an invented estimate. Live journal approval, engineering certification, claims negotiation and software deployment are excluded. Additional project types or historical periods require written scope, price and calendar amendments before analysis starts.

What you will own

• Diagnose remaining-cost boundaries through reconciled sample work packages, identifying inconsistent cut-offs and category definitions before the December evidence pack treats a purchase-order balance or budget residue as forecast support.
• Design the bridge between actual, committed remaining and uncommitted forecast cost using approved sources, preserving the event that moves an amount between categories without duplicating the same underlying work.
• Build quantity and rate revision records with authorised engineering and procurement owners, separating a changed technical estimate from a changed contractual commitment and retaining the reason the forecast moved.
• Define exception routes for received-but-uninvoiced cost, cancelled commitments and missing estimates, requiring controller or technical evidence rather than forcing an apparently complete total through unsupported assumptions.
• Construct reproducible tests for commitment conversion and cut-off changes, showing the expected forecast movement and the condition that should fail review when an amount is counted twice or omitted.
• Run internal-led replay on unseen work-package variations, checking that finance contributors explain totals and prior-version differences without the principal reconstructing source joins or making live accounting judgements.
• Transfer the forecast method and maintained control pack with update ownership, acceptance evidence and written scope boundaries so later project changes can be incorporated through the approved review logic.

Candidate qualifications

• Explain personally owned project FP&A or cost-to-finish judgement in EPC, infrastructure or comparable capital-intensive delivery. Describe how actual cost, open commitments and remaining work were reconciled, including an omission or duplication you found. Comparable forecast-control responsibility is relevant where the method is rigorous; the proof must show source boundaries and your decision, not only attendance at a project forecast meeting or submission of a consolidated estimate.
• Demonstrate practical interpretation of procurement commitments, accruals and engineering estimates while preserving the respective owners' authority. Identify a case where a purchase-order balance or unchanged budget did not represent the remaining cost. You should retain approved technical facts and accounting decisions, expose missing evidence and avoid suggesting that a plausible financial total independently validates physical progress, productivity or the technical work required to complete the project.
• Bring 28+ years of finance experience with substantial VP or equivalent project-planning, P&L and treasury partnership. Applied professional accounting or advanced finance competence must support disciplined forecast review and senior stakeholder challenge. The principal appointment requires specialist design standing and tested internal transfer, without executive control of construction, procurement negotiations or the controller's live treatment decisions.
• Reserve four weekly days over the five-month calendar and show a previous method that internal users could maintain on unfamiliar inputs. Explain the source versions, failed-case conditions and correction route used in acceptance. Secure project information and written change control are essential. Your commercial commitment must be to reproducible artifacts and transfer, not a promise that the accepted design will produce a target margin or eliminate every uncertain engineering estimate.

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 13 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-CON-2026-IND-174.