Finance Sourcing Strategy Advisory Director

The mandate

Finance must decide which capabilities should remain internally owned, which may be provided through a service arrangement and which require deliberate reinvestment. The adviser's standing question is not simply whether external provision is cheaper. It is whether each option preserves judgement, control, resilience, talent and the ability to change while producing credible economic value.

Over eight months, the director will support an executive steering group for two days each week. The work combines option framing, evidence challenge, confidential coaching and preparation of decision papers. Two remote working sessions each month will advance the analysis, with a quarterly on-site forum reserved for cross-functional choices and unresolved risk acceptance.

The adviser will build a capability lens that distinguishes transactional execution, process ownership, accounting judgement, control responsibility, data stewardship and transformation capacity. Cost comparisons must include retained work, governance, transition, failure demand, change charges, resilience and exit. Assumptions will be made visible so apparent precision does not conceal uncertainty.

This is influence-only work with no line authority. The adviser will not run a procurement, negotiate provider terms, recommend a party from whom the adviser receives value, direct employees or approve a sourcing decision. Management owns the decision and implementation. Actual or perceived provider relationships must be disclosed before access to commercially sensitive analysis.

The final month will test whether the chosen direction remains coherent under failure, growth, control change and exit scenarios. The adviser will leave an option record, retained-capability design, risk conditions and decision gates that management can carry into any later procurement or insourcing programme without dependency on the advisory appointment.

What you will own

• Create a capability taxonomy separating execution, ownership, judgement, control, data and change responsibilities before delivery options are assessed.
• Establish a total-economic-cost model covering retained organisation, transition, governance, failure demand, change, resilience and exit.
• Frame credible internal, external and hybrid options with explicit assumptions, uncertainties and conditions for success.
• Test options under service failure, control change, volume shift, talent loss and exit scenarios rather than average-state economics alone.
• Advise which capabilities must remain internally accountable even when execution is provided elsewhere.
• Produce concise executive papers recording alternatives considered, disconfirming evidence, conflicts and reasons for each recommendation.
• Recommend decision gates and risk conditions; management retains procurement, commercial and implementation authority.
• Deliver a final retained-capability and transition-readiness view that can stand independently of any provider proposal.

Candidate qualifications

• Show senior finance sourcing or insourcing advice that considered control, resilience and retained capability alongside cost.
• Provide an example where full economics overturned an apparently lower-priced delivery option.
• Demonstrate ability to separate execution transfer from non-transferable process, judgement and control accountability.
• Evidence scenario testing for service failure or exit, including decisions that changed before contract or mobilisation.
• Show advisory independence from providers and willingness to disclose commercial, investment or referral relationships.
• Bring board-quality option writing that represents uncertainty and opposing evidence fairly.
• Describe how management used your retained-capability design after the advisory term ended.

Working terms and boundaries

• The retainer covers two days a week, two monthly remote working sessions and one scheduled quarterly on-site forum.
• Additional procurement participation, negotiation support or travel is outside scope and requires a separate written agreement.
• The adviser has no selection, contracting, line-management or implementation authority.
• All provider, investor and referral conflicts must be disclosed before receiving commercially sensitive material and throughout the term.
• Management remains accountable for the sourcing decision, employee consequences, risk acceptance and execution.

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 9 October 2026. Mandate reference FNA-ADV-2026-STO-16.