Trade Working-Capital and Sustainable-Funding Adviser

The mandate

The committee keeps returning to a funding question: which trade and export financing choices improve cash resilience without adding conditions the operating business cannot credibly meet? Sustainability-linked terms may look cheaper while relying on weak measurement or costly future commitments. The adviser will compare financing options and their evidence burden, separating attractive labels from economically durable funding.

Four days each month cover trade-cycle analysis, financing-paper challenge and one written committee discussion. Board finance committee attendance is included, with papers supplied seven working days ahead. Urgent questions receive acknowledgement within a business day and a response within three where the available evidence permits. Negotiating facilities or preparing a new sustainability measurement system is separately scoped.

The twelve-month review period begins on 19 October 2026. Renewal needs the chair's approval against the remaining financing decisions, independence and internal capacity to sustain the review. Panaji is the India base with remote preparation and scheduled India trade or manufacturing workshops. Overseas interfaces are remote by default; additional visits need a separately authorised agenda and expense agreement.

The funding adviser has no line authority to direct treasury, trade operations or sustainability teams. There is no executive responsibility for borrowing, facility compliance or environmental performance under this retainer. Executives and the board choose the financing route, while qualified specialists determine legal and measurement requirements. Advice must show cost, cash timing and downside if an assumed condition cannot be met.

Other advisory commitments are permitted outside competing financing transactions and reviewed counterparties. A lender referral fee, interest in a measurement provider or paid work promoting the same funding proposal creates a conflict. Disclosure before review, recusal and separation from subsequent procurement are mandatory safeguards. The adviser must not turn independent committee challenge into an undisclosed route to financing commissions.

What you will own

• Test export and domestic trade-cycle assumptions against shipment, entitlement and collection evidence, identifying where funding tenor fails to match the actual cash conversion.
• Question sustainability-linked financing proposals on measurable obligations, potential pricing consequences and the operating cost of meeting conditions that appear inexpensive in the term sheet.
• Shape funding-option comparisons that expose collateral, covenant and liquidity implications alongside headline interest or fee savings before the committee chooses a route.
• Press sponsors to distinguish independently substantiated sustainability evidence from aspirational commitments, referring technical assessment and legal interpretation to their qualified owners.
• Challenge whether proposed working-capital relief genuinely reduces risk or merely moves it to suppliers, future periods or obligations absent from the forecast.
• Recommend financing decision gates and review triggers that preserve resilience, documentary readiness and accountable compliance ownership after a facility is approved.

Candidate qualifications

• Show twenty-eight or more years in finance with genuine CFO or senior treasury-governance accountability in consumer manufacturing, trade or related sectors. Describe a funding choice you challenged, the cash-cycle evidence that changed the recommendation and the eventual consequence. The committee needs decision judgement rather than a history of introductions to lenders.
• Demonstrate practical export and working-capital finance knowledge, including tenor, documentary requirements, collateral and collection uncertainty. Provide a case where an apparently economical facility failed to match operating cash timing, and explain the alternative you made comparable without assuming authority to approve borrowing.
• Bring the ability to evaluate sustainability-linked financing claims through financial and governance questions. Evidence should show how you tested measurement readiness, operating cost and downside conditions with qualified specialists. The role does not presume environmental certification competence or a guarantee that a financing label establishes credible sustainability performance.
• Prove independent committee advice with disclosure of lender, intermediary or supplier interests. Explain a conflict or commission arrangement you declined or governed, and how you maintained predictable monthly challenge. Current commitments must allow the four-day review cadence; borrowing execution, facility compliance and specialist technical opinions remain with appointed internal or professional owners.

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 9 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-ADV-2026-IND-52.