New-Market Financial Planning Readiness Director

The mandate

The interim Director will build financial planning readiness for a confidential new-market programme without exposing the organisation, sector or launch specifics. Planning must integrate staged demand, local cost, foreign-currency cash, capability ramp, regulatory dependencies and downside exit choices before irreversible commitments are made. Mobilisation is expected within twenty business days.

The assignment covers an approved planning baseline, launch-stage economics, monthly cash and performance view, decision gates and transition to a permanent market-finance owner. Assumptions must carry evidence and accountable owners; the model may represent uncertainty but cannot transform unapproved strategy into apparent commitment.

Temporary rights include approving planning definitions, rejecting unsupported business inputs, maintaining the decision baseline and certifying financial readiness for steering consideration. Market entry approval, legal formation, hiring, contracts and commercial launch remain outside scope and with authorised specialists.

The ten-month term is designed to reach early operating stability and transfer. The successor must lead two monthly reviews and one reforecast, reconcile opening assumptions to observed results and operate the trigger playbook. Handover does not wait for every market uncertainty to disappear, but all residual items need named ownership.

What you will own

• Build an integrated entry model covering staged demand, cost base, working capital, tax assumptions supplied by specialists, currency and cash.
• Establish a locked approval baseline with controlled changes for scope, timing, evidence and authorised executive choices.
• Define financial readiness gates for commitment, pre-launch, launch, scale and pause, each with observable evidence and decision owners.
• Create base, delayed, downside and stop scenarios showing maximum exposure, recovery path and irreversibility.
• Track pre-operating spend, commitments and available capacity against approved envelopes and escalation thresholds.
• Produce monthly bridges from initial case to latest outlook, separating evidence change, decision change, execution and external movement.
• Prepare the permanent market-finance leader through model operation, steering preparation and trigger rehearsal.
• Deliver a closing readiness and residual-risk dossier accepted by both the steering lead and finance sponsor.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 15 years in FP&A, market-entry finance or start-up planning within established governance, including interim Director work.
• Evidence of building an integrated launch case under uncertainty and maintaining its baseline through changing timing or scope.
• Strong capability in demand ramps, pre-operating cost, cash, working capital, currency sensitivity, stage gates and stop scenarios.
• A case where your financial gate delayed or reshaped commitment until a critical dependency was evidenced.
• Experience working with tax, legal and regulatory owners while avoiding unqualified assumptions outside finance expertise.
• Demonstrated transfer to a permanent country or market-finance leader during early-stage operations.
• Availability for on-site Chennai work and strict handling of information protected until candidate-authorised disclosure.

Working terms and boundaries

• The interim term is ten months, five days per week, with a possible two-month extension solely for a launch-to-run-rate transfer gap.
• Planning baselines, models and readiness recommendations are included; entity, employment, contract and launch decisions are excluded.
• No public or candidate-facing artifact may contain the organisation's sector, proposed offering, counterparties or launch specifics.
• The successor should be appointed by month five and independently run the final two reviews plus one reforecast.
• Closure requires controlled economics, operating gates, assigned residual risks and an accepted transition dossier.

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 10 October 2026. Mandate reference FPA-INT-2026-MAA-38.