Productivity Investment Governance Director

The mandate

The committee seeks an independent financial view of investments presented as productivity improvements. Claims often combine reduced effort, avoided growth, improved quality and future capacity without distinguishing which benefit reaches cash, when it becomes usable or whether demand will absorb it. The adviser will make those distinctions explicit before and after approval.

The standing decision is whether each proposal establishes a measurable baseline, a credible mechanism and an accountable path from intervention to value. Two days a week will cover pre-committee case challenge, monthly attendance and scheduled backchecks of previously approved claims.

This is an advisory appointment without line authority, spending approval or responsibility for delivering improvements. The Director may recommend stage, reject, defer or reframe through the Committee Chair, but management sponsors own cases and implementation. Advice cannot be cited as an assurance opinion.

The initial term ends after six committee cycles and two retrospective clinics. Extension requires a new governance question. Relevant implementation work, financial interests or relationships with proponents must be disclosed; the Chair may impose recusal, restricted papers or an alternative reviewer.

What you will own

• Define productivity benefit categories separating released cash, avoided spend, redeployed capacity, risk reduction, quality and throughput.
• Require every proposal to show baseline, counterfactual, adoption curve, dependency, measurement source, owner and double-counting check.
• Review at least fifteen cases and record analytical recommendation, challenged assumptions, committee decision and monitoring plan.
• Introduce confidence deductions for untested adoption, trapped cost, demand dependence and benefits already claimed elsewhere.
• Create continuation checkpoints that release investment in stages when observable leading evidence supports the mechanism.
• Backcheck a representative group of approved cases and reconcile realised financial movement to original benefit claims.
• Facilitate two clinics where sponsors examine failed assumptions and agree reusable learning without rewriting the approved baseline.
• Transfer the challenge standard and benefit-classification guide to committee owners before advisory closure.

Candidate qualifications

• Seventeen or more years in FP&A, transformation finance, investment governance or productivity economics.
• Evidence of disallowing or resizing a benefit claim because capacity, cash or counterfactual logic was flawed.
• Deep expertise in baseline construction, benefit attribution, adoption curves, trapped cost, double counting and staged investment gates.
• A case where a non-cash capacity benefit became financially valuable only after an additional management decision.
• Experience providing committee advice without becoming a sponsor, implementer or formal assurance provider.
• Ability to communicate why valuable operational outcomes need not be mislabeled as immediate financial savings.
• A transparent conflict record covering recent implementation or advisory work relevant to proposals under review.

Working terms and boundaries

• The engagement is two days a week for six months, organised around monthly committee and two scheduled backcheck clinics.
• No line authority, approval right, delivery ownership or assurance responsibility accompanies the role.
• Conflicts are updated before each committee pack; the Chair decides recusal and commissions alternative review where necessary.
• The adviser will not validate technical implementation, negotiate contracts or own the benefits ledger after transfer.
• Completion requires fifteen recorded reviews, two learning clinics, an adopted benefit standard and committee confirmation of independent operation.

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 FPA-ADV-2026-CPH-27.