Lease Accounting Data Recovery Leader — Commercial Aviation

The mandate

Rapid fleet renegotiation changed rentals, power-by-the-hour periods, extension options, return compensation and maintenance obligations faster than contract notices reached the lease subledger. Reconciliations now contain unresolved aircraft identities and spreadsheet overlays, while several modifications were treated inconsistently. The incumbent left before year-end, placing right-of-use assets, liabilities, cash flows and disclosures at immediate risk.

This nine-month assignment begins within three weeks and spans contract recovery, year-end audit, two subsequent closes and permanent-leader induction. The controlling event is a signed fleet amendment, delivery, return or option reassessment; each must enter a governed accounting route before the next reporting cut-off. Six weeks are reserved for live overlap, and the term will not extend for new fleet procurement.

Handover requires one authoritative aircraft-and-engine lease register, reconciled subledger-to-ledger positions, supported discount rates, controlled modification and reassessment decisions, separately governed maintenance arrangements, and three closes within approved tolerances. The successor must process an unseen early return plus blended rental concession without using the interim’s personal workbook before accepting operational authority.

The leader may halt unsupported lease postings, demand complete executed documents, determine workflow sequencing, approve delegated journals, assign case owners and control a €12 million recovery budget. Accounting policy changes, materiality, forecast choices and spend above delegation remain with the Group Controller and CFO. The external auditor retains independent procedures and conclusions throughout.

Aircraft sourcing strategy, lessor negotiation, engineering judgement, tax structuring and replacement of the enterprise lease platform are outside the assignment. The interim will reconcile data interfaces and control accounting events but will not renegotiate contracts or certify maintenance condition. Historical errors will be surfaced, not silently absorbed into prospective schedules to protect delivery dates.

Why this seat is open

Commercial teams changed fleet economics at exceptional speed, but the accounting event chain still depended on emails and one departing specialist. Recruitment cannot protect the next audit. A bounded executive recovery is required to restore contract completeness, reperformable calculations and permanent ownership across three reporting cycles.

What you will own

• Reconcile tail numbers, engines, contract entities, commencement dates, terms and payment currencies across fleet and accounting records.
• Triage concessions, extensions, early returns, substitutions, power-by-the-hour periods and option reassessments by accounting consequence.
• Separate lease components, maintenance reserves, return compensation, deposits and variable payments using executed contractual evidence.
• Rebuild discount-rate governance, modification calculations, foreign-exchange treatment, journals and financial-statement disclosure support.
• Command close rehearsals involving a late amendment, delivery deferral, early return, missing side letter and changed maintenance forecast.
• Track unreconciled assets, unsupported assumptions, aged interfaces, manual adjustments, control failures and recurring root causes.
• Transfer the recovered estate through three closes and successor completion of an unannounced modification case.

Candidate qualifications

• Held senior lease-accounting authority for a large airline, aircraft lessor or similarly contract-dense international fleet.
• Recovered incomplete contract populations and reconciled aircraft identity, subledgers, ledgers, cash and disclosure outputs.
• Applied modification, reassessment, variable-payment, component and discount-rate requirements to commercially complex fleet arrangements.
• Distinguished lease accounting from maintenance reserve, return-condition, deposit, service and engineering obligations under audit challenge.
• Exercised executive close authority while preserving sourcing, legal, engineering and external-audit decision boundaries.
• Handed stabilised fleet accounting to permanent leadership through live cycles and a genuinely unfamiliar contract change.

Non-negotiables

• Available within three weeks for full-time Dublin leadership and travel to selected fleet and lessor review sessions.
• Has personally governed aircraft lease modifications under external audit; generic property-lease experience is insufficient.
• No undisclosed interest may involve a major lessor, fleet adviser, lease-system vendor or appointed external auditor.
• Will record unresolved side letters and historical errors transparently even when correction affects reported performance.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe the hardest aircraft amendment you converted into a controlled lease accounting event.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you prove that a maintenance payment was not part of lease consideration?
3. 49 words maximum. Which unseen early-return fact pattern would you use to qualify the permanent leader?