Significant Accounting Evidence Adviser

The mandate

The Adviser will help the Audit Committee Chair assess whether significant accounting judgments are supported by evidence that is relevant, complete, internally consistent and capable of independent challenge. The standing question is not whether a paper contains enough pages, but whether its conclusion follows from verified facts and addresses credible contrary information. This is advisory oversight, not independent assurance.

Three days a week will support a fortnightly evidence clinic, monthly review of the judgment pipeline and scheduled committee preparation. Management will provide selected final or near-final papers, source indexes and its disposition of previous questions. The Adviser may request clarification through the agreed channel but will not gather evidence on management’s behalf or rewrite papers.

The review will look for common failure modes: assertions presented as facts, specialist output used outside its stated purpose, stale evidence, untested management intent, materiality used to dismiss uncertainty and conclusions that do not address alternatives. Advice will frame precise questions and identify what additional evidence would actually change confidence.

Management owns analysis, entries and representations; the external assurance provider owns its work; the committee owns oversight. The Adviser has no line authority, approval vote, investigative remit or right to direct the assurance team. If a concern requires formal investigation or additional assurance, it will be referred rather than informally pursued.

At five months, the expected legacy is an evidence-quality standard, a concise source-index protocol, improved committee questions and a disposition log. Relationships with assurance providers, specialists, executives and material financial interests must be declared before restricted papers are shared.

What you will own

• Define criteria for relevant, reliable, current and sufficiently contradictory evidence in significant accounting papers.
• Review selected judgments for a traceable chain from verified fact through alternatives to accountable conclusion.
• Identify specialist reports or management assertions used beyond their evidential scope.
• Frame committee questions that target the decision weakness rather than request indiscriminate additional documentation.
• Track whether previous evidence gaps have been corrected, accepted with limitation or simply repackaged.
• Recommend referral where investigation, legal analysis or further assurance exceeds the advisory role.
• Teach preparers and reviewers how to index evidence without replacing their ownership of papers.
• Maintain neutrality toward the accounting outcome while challenging the integrity of the reasoning.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate board-facing review of significant accounting evidence across estimates, classifications or complex events.
• Describe a conclusion changed because a decisive source was stale, incomplete or used outside its stated purpose.
• Show how you tested management intent using observable actions rather than representation alone.
• Evidence proportionate challenge that improved confidence without demanding unnecessary documentation.
• Explain how you distinguished an advisory evidence concern from a matter requiring formal assurance or investigation.
• Provide an example of working with specialist output while preserving its limitations and management responsibility.
• Identify professional or financial conflicts that would affect independent committee advice.

Working terms and boundaries

• The five-month retainer covers three days weekly, fortnightly clinics and scheduled committee preparation or attendance.
• The Adviser reviews selected evidence and reasoning but does not perform an audit, investigation or paper preparation.
• Management, assurance providers and the committee retain their separate responsibilities and decisions.
• Exceptional sessions require written reprioritisation within the retainer or a commercial amendment.
• Conflict clearance precedes disclosure of named specialists, executives or accounting matters.

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 FNA-ADV-2026-BUE-43.