Interim Chief Talent and Capability Officer — GCC Work Readiness

The mandate

A technology GCC needs an interim talent and capability executive for a fixed nine months, with the permanent executive returning to the seat in June 2027. The centre needs executive cover while its next hiring intake introduces work that is not yet supported by consistent onboarding and manager-readiness practice. An interim chief talent and capability officer will start on 26 October 2026 for nine months, fixed term without extension. This is return cover, not a permanent replacement search or an invitation to redesign the whole global HR organisation.

The gap concerns the connection between approved hiring and useful work. Job descriptions can identify skills, but managers need an agreed account of what a new professional should demonstrate before working independently. Global function owners define the technical and domain requirements. The interim will establish capability intake, development routes and manager support from those requirements, testing whether the GCC can absorb the approved hires. A completed induction schedule does not prove readiness if work instructions, coached practice or assessment ownership remain unresolved when the employee joins.

Twenty talent and capability colleagues support a centre of approximately 650 professionals. You hold delegated authority over approved talent-programme priorities, capability expenditure and people-team deployment. Within established hiring policy, you may withhold talent-readiness concurrence for an intake whose manager support is inadequate. The managing director reserves changes to workforce size and material organisation commitments; the global CHRO approves reward or employment-policy departures. Technical acceptance remains with function owners. Compensation redesign, automated candidate selection and changing the global location strategy are excluded from the cover seat.

Handover on 26 July 2027 requires two intake-review cycles with clear work-readiness evidence, managers able to explain and apply onboarding conditions, and the returning incumbent leading the next capability decision without interim preparation. Any professional whose support route remains incomplete must have an accountable manager and an owned action rather than disappear from the readiness report. Bengaluru-based five-day availability is required, with defined Hyderabad workshops. The return of authority should leave a functioning talent institution, not a library of learning materials whose practical use still depends on the interim personally resolving each manager's interpretation.

What you will own

• Establish capability intake conditions from global function work requirements, identifying where a proposed hire's onboarding depends on unprepared managers, unavailable practice opportunities or an unowned readiness assessment.
• Decide approved development and manager-support priorities within the delegated budget, protecting the next intake's real work needs rather than spreading learning resources uniformly across every advertised skill.
• Set role-readiness evidence with technical and domain owners, ensuring talent concurrence uses their agreed performance conditions instead of assuming that induction completion demonstrates independent operating capability.
• Allocate the twenty-person talent team across hiring support, capability preparation and manager coaching, keeping normal employee obligations protected while the centre absorbs the newly approved work.
• Withhold readiness concurrence where support conditions are inadequate, presenting a clear decision to the managing director about sequencing or preparation without unilaterally changing approved workforce size or employment terms.
• Lead two intake-review cycles with accountable managers, retaining evidence of unresolved support and distinguishing genuine work readiness from materials delivered, sessions attended or recruitment targets reached.
• Return executive ownership to the incumbent through an independently led capability decision and maintained residual-action record, transferring usable judgement and team authority before the fixed cover term ends.

Candidate qualifications

• Be available for five onsite days weekly from 26 October 2026 and explain how you would establish readiness priorities during the first three weeks. Demonstrate senior talent leadership in a GCC, IT services or comparable capability-intensive centre, including a hiring or onboarding decision where manager support was weaker than the skills identified in the recruitment plan. Show the operating judgement you personally held.
• Evidence 28+ years across people leadership and capability transformation, with former VP or equivalent senior responsibility. Practical coaching and structured change-management experience should support your ability to work with managers under delivery pressure. You must distinguish talent-readiness governance from technical certification, and organise the qualified function-owner input needed before the centre can responsibly claim that new professionals are ready for independent work.
• Describe a capability programme whose reported completion did not reflect useful work readiness, and the evidence that changed your approach. Experience should include development routes, competency interpretation and constructive challenge of senior delivery owners. The role requires decisive temporary leadership within existing people policy, not a comprehensive reward redesign or assumption that a common learning catalogue can meet every global function's professional requirements.
• Show a handover to a returning or incoming executive in which they independently made the next substantive people or capability decision. Clear documentation, secure employee information and development of capable deputies are essential. You should be willing to leave incomplete support openly owned and to respect the fixed cover boundary, rather than make the organisation dependent on your continued informal advice after the incumbent resumes authority.

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 14 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-INT-2026-IND-159.