SOX Control Assurance Stabilisation Director

The mandate

The interim Director will stabilise independent assurance over internal control for financial reporting where testing, deficiency evaluation and remediation validation are not converging ahead of a fixed reporting cycle. The role must mobilise within three weeks and establish a fact-based view of readiness without assuming management's control ownership.

The work starts with a risk-ranked assessment of scoping, design conclusions, testing quality, evidence gaps and unresolved deficiencies. Recovery must protect the distinction between management assessment, internal-audit assurance and external-auditor judgement. Timetable pressure cannot convert incomplete evidence into comfort.

Temporary authority covers internal-audit test strategy, file review, issue ratings, resource deployment and escalation of restrictions. The Director cannot design management controls, operate remediation, sign management certification or direct the statutory auditor. Accounting-policy conclusions remain with qualified owners.

Handover requires a permanent leader to supervise one complete retest wave, chair two deficiency-calibration meetings and present year-end assurance status. The interim Director exits after those tests, closure of critical file defects and acceptance of the residual-uncertainty memorandum by the Audit Committee Chair.

What you will own

• Reassess significant-account, disclosure, process and entity-level scoping against current materiality and risk evidence.
• Review design and operating-effectiveness files for objective, population, sampling, evidence, deviation and supervisory sufficiency.
• Create a deficiency inventory reconciling control failures, compensating controls, aggregation, severity and reporting status.
• Establish independent calibration that distinguishes control ownership from internal-audit and external-auditor responsibilities.
• Prioritise retesting by reporting consequence, remediation maturity and evidence lead time rather than owner confidence.
• Escalate access, population completeness and unresolved accounting dependencies before they jeopardise the reporting date.
• Report readiness through verified evidence, open limitations and decision points without promising an outcome owned by others.
• Certify the permanent leader through live retest supervision, deficiency challenge and committee presentation.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 15 years in SOX, financial-controls audit or external assurance, including Director-level remediation or year-end recovery.
• Active US CPA licence or equivalent credential accepted for public-company financial reporting, with strong internal-audit independence experience.
• Evidence of a SOX recovery where you corrected weak testing or deficiency aggregation before certification.
• Deep command of scoping, materiality, entity-level controls, design, sampling, deviations, compensating controls and severity evaluation.
• A case where you refused reliance because a population or evidence chain was incomplete despite deadline pressure.
• Experience coordinating with management and statutory auditors while preserving separate accountabilities and conclusions.
• Availability for five-day on-site Chicago delivery across the fixed reporting cycle and structured transfer.

Working terms and boundaries

• Delivery occupies five days each week across ten months; only a named year-end or handover failure can support two additional months.
• Internal-audit testing, review and status reporting are included; control design, management certification and external-audit direction are excluded.
• No deficiency may be downgraded solely because remediation is planned or a reporting deadline is near.
• The successor assumes retest supervision no later than month eight and must complete all three acceptance events.
• Completion requires defensible files, reconciled deficiencies, transparent limitations and committee-approved transfer.

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 10 October 2026. Mandate reference AUD-INT-2026-CHI-23.