Principal Co-Manufacturer Finance Specialist — Conversion and Recipe Cost Assurance

The mandate

A food business cannot compare renewal proposals from selected co-manufacturers because their commercial totals combine conversion, recipe inputs and customer-owned material consumption differently. A Principal Co-Manufacturer Finance Specialist leads the independent cost-assurance method, connecting procurement's renewal requirements to factory-finance evidence that does not yet explain every invoiced adjustment. The six-month engagement starts on 26 October 2026 and delivers a cost-evidence book, comparable renewal model and tested reconciliation guide. It does not choose the supplier, redesign network capacity or guarantee a negotiated saving; it establishes the financial facts on which those internal decisions can be made.

On 30 November 2026, the first milestone is the reconciled contract-and-invoice diagnostic with quantified evidence gaps. On 12 February 2027, the second is the conversion and recipe-cost baseline, including worked renewal comparisons and disputed-cost treatment. On 26 April 2027, final delivery consists of pilot reconciliations across two selected suppliers and transfer of the controlled evidence book. The later phase tests actual renewal and invoice use, allowing corrections to survive practical application rather than ending the project as soon as an analytical model has been built.

The supply-chain finance head accepts outputs jointly with the procurement director. Diagnostic acceptance requires traced invoice populations and contract clauses for all selected suppliers. Baseline acceptance requires reproducible treatment of conversion, input ownership and agreed loss allowances using a test set that includes price changes and abnormal batches. Final acceptance requires internal owners to reconcile two supplier periods and explain unresolved differences without consultant repair. Thirty per cent of the fee follows diagnostic acceptance, thirty-five per cent follows the tested baseline and thirty-five per cent follows the completed transfer; supplier concessions are irrelevant to payment.

The sponsor supplies contracts, invoices, recipe-cost records, material issue and return evidence, approved output data and seven contributors. Reserve three days each week, including planned site workshops in the Chennai-led programme. Food-safety assessment, contract negotiation and replacement of costing applications are excluded. Additional suppliers, recipes or retrospective periods need a written scope amendment and revised fee. Sensitive product information must remain within authorised data access. The baseline will explicitly record where evidence cannot support a conclusion, rather than turn every unexplained supplier amount into a presumed overcharge.

What you will own

• Reconcile selected contract and invoice populations to recipe, material and output evidence, distinguishing amounts supported by agreed conversion terms from charges whose basis remains unclear or inconsistent across supplier records.
• Construct the common conversion-cost baseline with explicit treatment of input ownership and loss allowances, making equivalent supplier proposals comparable without assuming their quoted commercial totals represent the same economic scope.
• Build renewal comparison cases for price resets, batch variation and customer-owned materials, documenting how each alternative changes the financial interpretation rather than selecting the supplier or negotiating its commercial commitment.
• Validate abnormal-batch and disputed-charge treatment with finance and procurement using approved operating evidence, identifying when further supplier clarification is required instead of treating missing support as automatic proof of overbilling.
• Run two supplier-period reconciliation pilots through internal owners, recording reasoning errors and source gaps so acceptance demonstrates usable evidence control rather than the consultant's ability to balance a final spreadsheet.
• Transfer the cost-evidence book with version control, update triggers and unresolved-item ownership, ensuring future recipe or contract changes can be incorporated without silently invalidating the accepted commercial baseline.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate senior food, FMCG or manufacturing-finance expertise with direct experience analysing co-manufacturer or contract-production economics. Explain a cost comparison you rebuilt because conversion scope, material ownership or loss treatment differed between suppliers. Show the source evidence, personal reasoning and practical decision enabled, rather than citing a negotiated saving without establishing whether the compared proposals were economically equivalent.
• Have at least twenty-eight years of finance experience and strong professional costing or accounting competence. You must connect invoice terms to material issues, approved output and recipe assumptions while respecting the limits of the operating evidence. The role requires informed challenge of supplier charges, not a presumption that every unexplained variance is recoverable or that finance can independently certify food quality.
• Evidence consulting or programme delivery with reconciled artifacts, explicit acceptance and coached internal use. Describe a pilot that exposed an error in your initial baseline and how you corrected the method. You should have managed scope changes and sensitive supplier or product data without allowing the engagement to become an open-ended negotiation support retainer whose completion depends on another party's concessions.
• Bring the capacity for three days weekly across six months and constructive facilitation among procurement, finance and operating specialists. Experience should include documenting unresolved evidence gaps, training owners in comparison logic and establishing update responsibility after transfer. Sound judgement about confidentiality and the distinction between an accepted baseline, a commercial negotiation position and a technically approved recipe is essential throughout the programme.

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 12 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-CON-2026-IND-029.