Managing Partner – Sector Advisory — Engineering Centre

The mandate

A Pune engineering centre is being asked to move beyond captive execution and become a global source of product, platform and industrial-engineering leadership. Business presidents support the ambition but disagree about where ownership should move, what evidence the centre must provide and how local engineering decisions will connect to global roadmaps. The advisory partnership supporting the change now needs a senior sector lead at the point when counsel must turn into hard choices.

The Managing Partner – Sector Advisory will lead a client-facing and internal advisory effort influencing approximately 2,050 employees and partners and an engineering-services perimeter near ₹3,250 crore. The partner will not operate the centre or masquerade as its shadow CEO. The assignment is to frame choices, test evidence, convene product and engineering sponsors and help leaders commit to an expansion model they can govern after the advisers leave.

The work spans product-location strategy, engineering economics, capability maturity, intellectual property, talent and decision rights. It requires judgement about which global mandates fit the centre rather than reflexive advocacy for expansion. The successful partner will be expected to advise against attractive work when ownership is unclear or the centre lacks the required product and architecture depth.

Why this seat is open

The former sector lead stepped down unexpectedly following a portfolio conflict and an accelerated transition. Existing partners can maintain individual workstreams, but none combines sector authority, senior-client trust and overall case accountability. This is an urgent replacement, targeted within six to eight weeks. The facts of the transition are professionally neutral and will not be used as a proxy for candidate assessment.

What you will own

• Form a fact-based thesis on which engineering products, platforms and lifecycle stages the Pune centre can credibly own.
• Advise business presidents on decision rights, funding and governance required for genuine global accountability.
• Lead senior client workshops that surface disagreement and end in recorded choices rather than consensus language.
• Build engineering-centre economics that compare capability, cycle time, quality and reuse, not only labour arbitrage.
• Shape a sequenced expansion roadmap with explicit capability gates and exit criteria for mandates that fail to mature.
• Direct and develop the advisory partner team while preserving independent challenge and quality review.
• Translate technical evidence for investment and people committees without overstating certainty.
• Maintain the boundary between advice and management, ensuring client executives remain named owners of implementation.

The first 12 months

In the first 60 days, the Managing Partner will revalidate the case portfolio, interview global decision-makers and identify where the stated expansion ambition lacks sponsor, authority or evidence. By day 90, the regional partner council and client sponsor should approve a short list of ownership plays and stop spending advisory effort on weak propositions.

Through month nine, each selected play will have a capability baseline, governance contract and economic case. The partner will guide at least one live transfer of product authority and convene independent technical challenge before commitments become irreversible. The advisory team will adopt clear case roles and succession plans.

By year-end, two global mandates should have passed agreed ownership gates, with sponsors, funding and outcomes recorded. The client should be able to run the decision cadence independently, and at least 70% of the advisory leadership roles should have ready-now or ready-soon successors. Measured client value must exceed fees by a defensible multiple agreed at inception.

What the board will measure

• Decisions influenced and implemented, including propositions the partner recommended stopping.
• Trust across global product, engineering and centre leaders without loss of advisory independence.
• Quality and traceability of sector evidence used in capital and location choices.
• Sustainable client capability rather than dependence on recurring advisory governance.
• Commercial health, conduct and talent depth of the advisory portfolio.

The person

You are a managing partner, senior strategy adviser or former engineering-business leader with substantial GCC and product-development credibility. You have advised boards on cross-border engineering ownership and stayed close enough to implementation to know whether recommendations worked. Pure relationship leadership without technical and economic substance will not meet the bar.

At least 28 years of experience is required. You should have influenced or led a scope above ₹1,900 crore and worked with organisations of 1,450 people or more. The council will seek evidence of a recommendation that reduced or redirected an expansion, not only growth stories. You must distinguish confidential advice, client authority and your firm’s commercial interest.

The role is onsite in Pune and requires international travel to global product and governance forums.

Compensation and terms

The expected fixed range is ₹5.0–7.5 crore, with variable and long-term incentives shaped by the partnership model. Assessment will cover client value, conduct, sustainable revenue, intellectual contribution and partner development. Originations alone will not determine reward. Final structure and notice timing will reflect the candidate’s existing partnership obligations and completed conflict review.

Confidentiality

The advisory client, product domains and partner transition are confidential. Identifying information will be shared only after candidate qualification, conflict clearance and a signed undertaking. The composite centre scale and expansion event are not a coded account of a market-known organisation.