Planning Data Model and Automation Director

The mandate

This commission will replace fragmented planning definitions and manual movement with a governed analytical data model and an automation-ready process design. It is not a technology implementation or a general data strategy. The consultant must specify the finance semantics, controls, interfaces and proof-of-concept required for a later build decision.

Required artifacts are a source-to-measure map, canonical planning schema, transformation-rule catalogue, control and reconciliation design, automation backlog, and tested prototype for two prioritised workflows. Each must be legible to finance owners and sufficiently precise for an implementation team to estimate without rediscovering business rules.

Six milestones are scheduled for weeks three, seven, twelve, eighteen, twenty-four and twenty-eight. The Finance Transformation Sponsor accepts discovery and schema outputs; a designated control owner accepts rules and reconciliations; the steering group accepts prototypes and the final backlog. Acceptance depends on traceability, repeatable tests and resolution of critical defects.

The organisation will supply approved sample extracts, named measure owners, current definitions, access to planning-control evidence and timely decisions on disputed semantics. The consultant will not infer missing policy from data patterns. Any dependency failure is recorded within two business days and either remediated by its owner or handled through agreed change control.

What you will own

• Inventory critical planning measures and trace each from approved source through transformation, aggregation, scenario and executive output.
• Define canonical dimensions, grains, hierarchies and effective-date treatment capable of preserving historical comparability through organisational change.
• Document transformation rules in finance language alongside executable test cases, ownership and materiality thresholds.
• Design reconciliations for completeness, accuracy, timeliness, version and scenario separation, including evidence retained for review.
• Prioritise automation candidates using control risk, effort, cycle time and decision value rather than visibility or sponsor preference.
• Prototype two workflows and demonstrate repeatable outputs against signed samples, with defect severity and retest evidence recorded.
• Produce an implementation-neutral backlog containing requirements, dependencies, acceptance tests and sequencing constraints.
• Train internal product and finance owners to govern semantic changes without allowing local workarounds to become silent standards.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 14 years spanning FP&A, financial data architecture and automation design, including Director accountability for finance semantics.
• Personally authored examples of dimensional models, rule catalogues or reconciliation designs that connected planning meaning to technical delivery.
• Expertise in data grain, lineage, slowly changing structures, master-data governance, scenario versioning and financial-control test design.
• Evidence of rejecting attractive automation where unstable policy or poor source controls would merely accelerate error.
• Experience running prototypes with signed test packs, defect triage and formal acceptance rather than demonstration-only success.
• Ability to communicate precisely with finance, control and technical owners without allowing implementation terminology to obscure economic meaning.
• A delivery record that separates reusable artifacts from client-dependent inputs and leaves implementation teams with estimable, testable requirements.

Working terms and boundaries

• The assignment runs seven months at five days a week and is governed through six milestones with named acceptors and written defect criteria.
• Scope ends at schema, controls, backlog and two prototypes; platform procurement, production configuration, migration and enterprise deployment are excluded.
• The consultant can recommend semantic decisions and facilitate resolution but cannot approve accounting policy, spend or access exceptions.
• Approved extracts, measure-owner time, policy decisions and control evidence are client dependencies; missing items invoke documented change control.
• Final acceptance requires repeatable prototype tests, closed critical defects, transferred governance and a steering-group-approved implementation backlog.

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 12 October 2026. Mandate reference FPA-CON-2026-BLR-08.