Financial Instruments Classification Adviser

The mandate

This Adviser is retained around one standing governance question: are financial instruments entering the correct classification and measurement route on the basis of complete contractual facts and documented management purpose? Advice will focus on high-judgment cases, changes in terms and instruments whose economic features challenge standard intake. The appointment does not transfer responsibility for valuations, entries or policy approval.

The two-day weekly cadence combines a monthly intake scan, a fortnightly technical clinic and one planned in-person review each month. Management will supply approved agreements, its proposed analysis and relevant purpose evidence before a case is accepted. The Adviser will identify missing facts, test alternative classifications and state which evidence would alter the view.

The work must keep three questions separate: what the contract requires, how the instrument is actually managed and how the applicable framework connects those facts to accounting. Particular care is expected where embedded features, modifications, derecognition, equity-versus-liability analysis or business-model evidence create tension. Advice should make uncertainty explicit rather than hiding it behind technical vocabulary.

The Group Controller decides conclusions and owns any consultation with external assurance. The Adviser may recommend escalation and request that a paper be reconsidered, but has no power to instruct staff, calculate production valuations, post entries or make management representations. Dissent will be logged with its reasoning and governance disposition.

By the end of five months, the organisation should possess a stronger case-screening protocol, improved decision papers and a concise principles library derived from reviewed matters. The Adviser must clear conflicts involving investments, issuers, counterparties, valuation providers and recent engagements before receiving confidential instrument details.

There is no line authority in this appointment: any recommended action must be accepted and assigned by the accountable executive.

What you will own

• Establish selection criteria that route economically unusual or modified instruments into timely accounting review.
• Challenge whether contractual cash-flow features and documented management purpose support the proposed measurement category.
• Review liability-versus-equity, modification, derecognition and embedded-feature analyses for decisive facts and contrary evidence.
• Hold fortnightly clinics that develop internal reasoning without taking authorship or decision ownership from management.
• Create a principles record linking anonymised fact patterns, key evidence, alternatives, outcome and future reconsideration trigger.
• Advise when valuation, legal or treasury expertise is necessary while preserving the boundary between those views and accounting.
• Report recurring intake weaknesses to the Group Controller and propose targeted, proportionate corrections.
• Refuse assignments that compromise independence or require operational responsibility inconsistent with advisory status.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate senior technical-accounting experience with complex financial instruments under IFRS or US GAAP.
• Provide a classification conclusion that changed after contractual or business-purpose evidence was tested more closely.
• Explain how you resolved tension among legal form, economic substance, valuation input and accounting requirements.
• Show influence over an accountable executive through written reasoning rather than through delegated authority.
• Evidence judgment across modification, derecognition, embedded features and liability-equity questions, not only routine categorisation.
• Describe how you recorded dissent when management adopted a defensible but different conclusion.
• Show a rigorous conflict process appropriate to instruments, counterparties and prior professional relationships.

Working terms and boundaries

• The five-month retainer buys two adviser days per week and the specified clinic, scan and travel cadence.
• Management supplies complete contracts, approved purpose evidence and its initial analysis; incomplete cases may be deferred.
• Advice does not constitute valuation, legal counsel, independent assurance, entry preparation or management approval.
• Additional attendance requires reprioritisation within the retainer or a mutually signed fee change.
• Conflicts and relevant financial interests are tested before each restricted matter is accepted.

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 7 October 2026. Mandate reference FNA-ADV-2026-AMS-11.