Associate Director — Professional-Services Financial Reporting and Contract Accounting

The mandate

A professional-services platform has added multi-period engagements, variable-fee arrangements and partner-related financial balances that require more disciplined reporting judgement than its current close process provides. The associate director will lead the financial-reporting perimeter across contract accounting, balance-sheet substantiation and audit evidence. The work begins with understanding the substance of service obligations and the evidence supporting recognition, not treating billing or timesheet completion as an automatic accounting conclusion. Management analysis must be reconciled to the financial statements while retaining a clear distinction between booked results and internal performance measures used by service leaders.

The role carries open-ended employment and an initial twelve-month agenda of contract-accounting consistency, close-quality improvement and stronger review documentation. Eight professionals report through the seat. They need clear technical escalation, practical evidence standards and supervisory review that identifies unsupported assumptions before the auditor requests them. The associate director will establish judgement papers for material arrangements and review partner-related balances with the finance director. A technically elegant memo is insufficient if operational teams cannot supply the required evidence or if the final close depends on undocumented interpretations known only to its author.

Delegated authority includes approving routine reporting judgements within established policy, close adjustments below agreed thresholds and team priorities. New accounting policies, material estimates and external financial-statement approval remain with the finance director and authorised governance forums. Commercial contract negotiation, tax opinions and statutory audit sign-off are excluded. Service leaders own delivery evidence and contract changes; finance evaluates their accounting consequence. The associate director should require missing evidence and escalate uncertainty without converting reporting responsibility into a claim that finance can certify delivery, settle a legal dispute or independently discharge the appointed auditor's obligations.

Bengaluru is the hybrid base, with planned Mumbai reviews and controlled cross-border contract discussions. The continuing remit is a reliable reporting organisation that learns from close and audit findings rather than rebuilding the same evidence each year. Success includes clear accounting conclusions, traceable balance support and controllers capable of explaining why a judgement changed. The leader must make technical reasoning understandable to non-accountants, protect confidential engagement information and provide the finance director with honest visibility of unresolved matters. Financial reporting should support commercial confidence by being defensible, not by concealing uncertainty until external review forces its disclosure.

What you will own

• Establish contract-accounting review for material service arrangements, connecting obligations, variable fees and delivery evidence to recognition conclusions rather than using invoice timing as a substitute for technical judgement.
• Approve delegated close judgements and adjustments with documented evidence, escalating new policy or material uncertainty to the finance director before unresolved matters become recurring year-end audit surprises.
• Lead balance-sheet substantiation and partner-related balance review through the eight-person team, requiring understandable support and accountable resolution rather than accepting an ageing schedule as proof that a balance is valid.
• Reconcile management performance measures to financial reporting with explicit adjustments, helping service leaders understand differences without allowing internal commercial metrics to dictate the statutory accounting conclusion.
• Build audit evidence and technical review into ordinary close activity, developing controllers who can explain assumptions, contract changes and prior-period differences without relying on a retrospective evidence reconstruction.
• Present reporting quality and unresolved judgement matters to the finance director, proposing proportionate action and specialist referrals while protecting engagement confidentiality and keeping formal financial-statement approval with its authorised owners.

Candidate qualifications

• Hold a Chartered Accountancy qualification with strong financial-reporting and assurance capability; IFRS accreditation or equivalent demonstrated technical depth is valuable. Explain a service-contract accounting conclusion you personally developed, including the obligation analysis, evidence and review route. We need judgement that can be implemented in a close process, not only a technical interpretation that assumes complete operational records will somehow arrive later.
• Demonstrate reporting, audit or advisory work involving complex contracts, estimates and balance-sheet support, with practical responsibility for team review. Describe a material balance that appeared well documented but lacked evidence of its substance. Show how you identified the gap, changed the accounting or supporting process and obtained the appropriate approval rather than treating a signed schedule as sufficient assurance.
• Evidence leadership of qualified accountants or reporting teams with the ability to coach technical reasoning and manage difficult deadlines. Explain an occasion when a commercial leader wanted recognition ahead of adequate delivery evidence. Strong candidates can maintain a constructive relationship, frame the accounting consequence clearly and escalate the decision without either compromising the conclusion or taking over the operational owner's responsibility.
• Show a disciplined approach to close improvement and audit readiness, including repeatable evidence ownership and review rather than a one-time cleanup. Process-improvement training is useful when it reduces recurring errors without flattening genuine judgement into a checklist. Protect confidential contracts and partner information, recognise specialist legal or tax questions and remain clear about the boundary between management reporting leadership and independent statutory-auditor responsibility.

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 8 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-049.