Finance Controller — Seasonal Consumer-Products Bridge

The mandate

Seasonal consumer-product inventory and channel plans need to be reconciled to the operating budget. Commercial teams can describe trade opportunity, while accounting can report stock, but the connection between contribution, seasonal commitments and cash needs a consistent owner. Controller decisions encompass reconciled stock, contribution and cash reviews, with changes to credit policy, prices and statutory treatment following retained approval routes.

The proposed nine-month appointment begins on 19 October 2026 in Thane, with five-day availability and planned India manufacturing and channel-finance reviews. A permanent controller search runs alongside the bridge. Extension is possible only with a written transition reason and a revised end condition, not an assumption that seasonal complexity justifies indefinite temporary cover.

Handover requires a controlled stock and trade-contribution bridge, an accepted budget-to-cash review and three closes with judgement-heavy balances independently reviewed. The successor must refresh seasonal assumptions, explain the difference between dispatch growth and cash recovery and receive unresolved rebate, inventory and customer-credit issues. Completion cannot be claimed by lowering reported ageing through unsupported reclassification or accrual release.

The controller may approve operating finance schedules, assign accounting reviews and challenge budget assumptions within the finance director's delegation. New credit policies, permanent hiring, borrowing and write-offs above ₹8 lakh require approval. Statutory sign-off remains with appointed officers, and changes to customer pricing or trade contracts stay with authorised commercial leadership. Business partnering provides evidence, not an alternative route around delegation.

The bridge excludes a commercial category-head replacement, a tax litigation assignment and a full manufacturing cost-system implementation. It includes readable finance decisions on seasonal stock, trade spend and operating cash. The leader must preserve the distinction between useful channel investment and margin leakage, with evidence clear enough for retained finance staff and the successor to reproduce.

What you will own

• Approve a stock-to-cash review connecting seasonal purchasing, channel dispatch, trade terms and collections, with evidence owners for assumptions that materially affect liquidity.
• Resolve inventory-ageing classifications using product demand and technical usability evidence, escalating proposed write-offs or policy changes beyond the controller's delegated limit.
• Set trade-contribution schedules that reconcile discounts, rebates and returns to controlled amounts rather than treating dispatch revenue as evidence of profitable channel growth.
• Challenge commercial budget assumptions with realised contribution and cash timing, presenting supported alternatives while leaving pricing and customer-contract approval with authorised leaders.
• Authorize close reviews for inventory, rebates and customer balances, preserving independent challenge and documented policy application through the temporary operating period.
• Transfer seasonal assumptions, reporting controls and open issues through a successor-led budget-to-cash cycle with a replayable contribution bridge and explicit approval boundaries.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate twelve or more years in finance with substantive controller responsibility in consumer manufacturing, retail, trading or related engineering businesses. Present a seasonal stock or channel-finance decision you personally owned, the evidence tested and the realised contribution or cash effect. Explain the delegated limit on that decision and the independent evidence that established whether the inventory or channel intervention improved cash rather than merely shifting an accounting estimate.
• Show strong practical accounting and business-finance knowledge across inventory, rebates, returns and trade credit. Explain a case where dispatch or margin reporting concealed a future cash or adjustment burden, and show how you reconciled the commercial explanation to controlled financial records.
• Bring budget management and business-partner capability supported by a decision cycle used by operating leaders. Describe how you challenged a pricing or stock assumption without assuming commercial approval authority, and how follow-up evidence established whether the action worked. Indirect-tax familiarity supports coordination but does not replace appointed specialist advice.
• Prove leadership of accounts staff and analysts through close, seasonal planning and successor transfer. Supply an anonymised review or handover example, explaining how another controller refreshed the assumptions and preserved independent evidence. Show how the receiving controller challenged a revised demand or collection assumption and identified the authorised owner of a pricing, write-off or credit-policy decision. Current obligations must allow the specified start and regular Thane presence.

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 PCT-INT-2026-IND-53.