Chief Financial Officer, Consumer Beverage Company — Trade Funds and Returnable Assets

The mandate

A beverage operating company uses trade promotions and returnable packaging across domestic distribution channels. Shipment growth has become easier to measure than the net income and asset exposure it creates. The CFO will own the full company finance function, connecting commercial funding, verified claims and packaging records to reliable reporting and cash choices. The business needs to understand what remains after discounts and obligations, and whether returnable assets and deposits are being controlled as financial responsibilities rather than assumed to be harmless components of the physical distribution cycle.

The executive appointment is open-ended. An initial eighteen-month programme will strengthen trade-fund evidence, returnable-asset visibility and finance leadership across twenty-three professionals. Hyderabad is the hybrid base, with regular production and distribution reviews. Sales leaders own channel relationships and supply leaders own physical recovery. Finance accepts responsibility for accounts, budgets, approved cash priorities and independent financial challenge. Qualified controllers and advisers support technical accounting and tax conclusions, ensuring that operating interpretations do not become unsupported financial treatment.

The CFO can approve routine expenditure and supported commercial-finance exceptions within delegation. Material promotional architecture, distributor settlements and investment in packaging pools require authorised executive or board approval. Commercial owners validate eligible activities and contractual rights; operating owners validate quantities and recoverability evidence. Finance must preserve the distinction between a promotional commitment, a claimed amount and a verified liability, as well as between a deposit balance and unrestricted income. A favourable net-realisation figure cannot be accepted if unresolved claims or incomplete asset records materially undermine its basis.

The ongoing remit includes reporting, planning and working-capital governance. It excludes beverage formulation, packaging engineering and physical logistics execution. Directors expect a clear account of the financial consequence of missing returnables, delayed recovery and disputed trade funds, including uncertainty that cannot yet be measured precisely. The CFO should change decisions before channel commitments expand exposure, while avoiding an indiscriminate freeze that damages a justified commercial programme. Finance leadership means accountable alternatives and proportionate controls, not merely a later adjustment that makes the accounts agree without explaining the commercial or physical cause.

What you will own

• Establish a trade-funding commitment and claim view joining approved schemes, eligibility evidence and settlements, identifying where reported net realisation depends on unverified assumptions about outstanding commercial obligations.
• Govern the finance record of returnable assets and associated deposits with operating owners, reconciling material movements and distinguishing missing physical evidence from a supported financial conclusion about loss or recoverability.
• Decide approved cash and finance priorities within delegation, escalating material distributor settlements or packaging investments with clear alternatives before a growing channel commitment increases exposure beyond the sanctioned plan.
• Lead close and reporting through qualified review of trade funds, asset balances and deposits, preserving technical conclusions so an operating shortcut cannot convert uncertain recovery or temporary funds into convenient income.
• Challenge channel and pack-level economics using verified deductions and asset requirements, showing how a commercially attractive shipment target changes once continuing promotional and returnable-pool obligations are included.
• Recommend proportionate changes to commercial evidence and recovery interfaces with sales and supply leaders, improving finance visibility without taking distributor management or physical return operations into the CFO's team.
• Develop finance managers who can investigate difficult claim and asset differences, maintain confidential records and present actionable executive choices rather than repeatedly clearing unexplained balances through quarter-end intervention.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate senior business-controlling or company-finance responsibility in consumer goods, beverages, technology or another relevant operating environment. A twelve-to-eighteen-year career should include owned P&L decisions and executive leadership consistent with a full company seat. Show a trade-funding, channel or asset-exposure judgement whose outcome depended on better operating evidence, explaining your contribution and the approval route rather than a broad improvement attributed to the whole business.
• Have strong accounting, budgeting and financial-control competence supported by relevant preparation or equivalent substantial senior practice. Explain how a commercial commitment, a claim and a verified liability were distinguished in reporting, or how deposits and asset records affected a working-capital decision. Authoritative treatment requires qualified accounting or tax input where necessary, with finance responsible for using those conclusions consistently in records, commercial analysis and executive decisions.
• Have worked constructively with sales and supply owners when physical records or claim eligibility were incomplete. Describe how you improved evidence without making ordinary distribution unworkable, including a material uncertainty retained honestly. Finance must challenge quantities, rights and economic assumptions intelligently while leaving packaging engineering, product quality and physical recovery decisions with the functions equipped to assess and execute them.
• Have led finance specialists and presented consequential commercial choices to executive governance. Evidence should show a proportionate control, a justified growth programme you supported and an exposure you refused to obscure. The appointment requires direct Hyderabad engagement, operating travel and confidentiality around channel terms. Full financial accountability includes developing an internal method that managers can sustain independently, not permanent dependence on CFO intervention to explain every promotional or returnable-asset balance.

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 13 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-262.