Tax Risk Appetite and Escalation Director

The mandate

The board's standing question is whether stated tax-risk appetite actually governs choices when technical uncertainty, cash consequence and commercial timing collide. Existing tax papers may describe exposure, yet escalation can depend on individual instinct and similar risks can receive different authority. The adviser will help the board articulate boundaries that can be used before a commitment, not rationalised afterward.

Seven monthly cycles structure the appointment: the adviser works with management each week, reviews progress privately with the sponsor, and joins the committee once per month. First comes a study of recent decisions and delegations; live cases then test the draft appetite before a final assessment of escalation discipline.

The Director serves through influence only and has no line authority, veto, filing responsibility or power to accept tax risk. Advice may identify an issue as outside appetite, challenge the completeness of a decision paper and recommend a higher approval route. Management owns recommendations and the board or delegated executives retain all acceptance decisions.

Candidates must disclose adviser relationships, board seats, investments and recent matters that could affect independent judgment. A directly adverse engagement or privileged knowledge that cannot be safeguarded may require recusal or preclude appointment. Renewal is not automatic; the committee must define a new governance question at the end of the agreed term.

What you will own

• Examine prior material tax decisions to identify where authority, evidence or appetite language failed to produce consistent escalation.
• Shape an appetite statement that distinguishes prohibited positions, constrained choices, managed uncertainty and routine execution without pretending risk can be reduced to one score.
• Define escalation tests using technical support, cash range, accounting effect, reputational consequence, precedent, reversibility and decision lead time.
• Test the draft framework against at least eight anonymised cases and record where reasonable directors reach different conclusions.
• Press management to identify the accountable risk owner, available alternatives and monitoring trigger before seeking acceptance.
• Recommend a decision-paper format that separates facts, law, probability, financial consequence and management preference.
• Facilitate two committee rehearsals in which late or incomplete tax advice challenges commercial timing and reserved authority.
• Deliver a closing opinion on whether the appetite is understood, evidenced and used consistently, including unresolved ambiguities for board decision.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 18 years in direct or international tax leadership with substantial board, audit-committee or enterprise-risk exposure.
• A tax-risk appetite or escalation framework you personally shaped, including evidence that it changed an approval route or prevented an unsupported decision.
• Experience distinguishing legal possibility from an organisation's chosen risk tolerance without presenting personal conservatism as governance.
• Examples spanning compliance, controversy, transactions and tax accounting so the framework is not tailored to one technical issue.
• Demonstrated ability to challenge a highly sponsored tax choice while leaving acceptance authority clearly with directors or executives.
• A conflict profile suitable for confidential access, including willingness to recuse where another mandate creates perceived impairment.
• Availability for two days a week and the full São Paulo committee cadence throughout the seven-month term.

Working terms and boundaries

• The monthly retainer covers two days a week, weekly working sessions and one scheduled board or committee meeting during each month of the term.
• The adviser has no line authority and cannot veto transactions, approve filings, direct employees, retain advisers or accept risk for governance.
• Technical opinions, case execution and document production outside the agreed appetite work require separate scope and are not implied services.
• Conflicts are declared before access and refreshed as live cases enter testing, with recusal documented by the committee sponsor.
• The engagement concludes after the effectiveness opinion; renewal requires a new standing question and cannot be justified by incomplete management actions alone.

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 11 October 2026. Mandate reference TAX-ADV-2026-SAO-15.