Interim Chief Delivery Officer — Cloud Migration Recovery

The mandate

Two regulated-enterprise migrations were rolled back after dependency discovery and service-transition evidence proved incomplete, and the delivery chief resigned as penalties began to accrue. More than forty migrations remain in flight with inconsistent readiness definitions and a shortage of senior cutover leaders.

The interim is expected within three weeks for nine months, covering the two recoveries and a complete portfolio re-gate. A permanent delivery chief search begins after the first successful cutover, with a possible six-week extension for final transfer.

Handover requires both failed customers to accept new production cutovers, the remaining portfolio to use a common readiness standard, forecast margin and milestone accuracy to hold for two quarters, and the successor to approve one high-risk go-live. All exceptions must be visible in the migration system of record.

The interim may stop cutovers, reallocate architects and transition leaders, invoke subcontractor remedies and deploy ₹12 crore inside the recovery fund. Customer settlements above ₹8 crore, cloud commitments above ₹20 crore, permanent senior hires and termination of a strategic partner need CEO or board approval.

Cloud product engineering, general managed-service operations and new sales ownership are excluded. The brief begins with contracted migration scope and ends when service acceptance transfers cleanly into run operations.

Why this seat is open

The rollbacks exposed a delivery system that reported activity rather than transition readiness. Regional leaders cannot impose one standard while protecting their own programme economics. A temporary enterprise-wide operator can re-gate the portfolio and leave permanent leadership a controlled book.

What you will own

• Define non-waivable migration gates for discovery, landing zone, security, data, cutover, rollback and service transition.
• Re-baseline the two failed programmes around accepted customer dependencies, production criteria and commercial exposure.
• Decide which portfolio cutovers proceed, pause or return to discovery based on tested readiness evidence.
• Reassign scarce architects and cutover leaders using risk, value, complexity and contractual timing.
• Validate remaining effort, third-party cost and penalty exposure for every material migration.
• Complete two accepted production recoveries and measure stability through the agreed hypercare window.
• Transfer the gated portfolio, client decisions, staffing map, partner claims and next-quarter cutover calendar to the successor.

Candidate qualifications

• Served as chief delivery officer, cloud transformation executive or migration-factory director at large scale.
• Led complex regulated-enterprise cloud cutovers through rollback, recovery and service acceptance.
• Governed a portfolio of at least twenty simultaneous migrations with reliable cost and milestone forecasts.
• Exercised stop authority where client pressure and contractual penalties favoured premature go-live.
• Directed distributed cloud engineering and transition teams exceeding 1,000 people.
• Negotiated recovery plans with hyperscalers, subcontractors and enterprise technology executives.

Non-negotiables

• Available in Pune within three weeks and able to attend overnight cutovers.
• No active incentive, reseller or advisory relationship with the chosen hyperscalers.
• Will not waive discovery or rollback evidence to protect a date.
• Must have direct customer acceptance and delivery-P&L authority.

1. 49 words maximum. State your earliest start and any hyperscaler or integrator conflict.
2. 49 words maximum. Describe a cloud cutover you rolled back and the evidence required before retry.
3. 49 words maximum. Which discovery omission most often invalidates migration readiness?