Commercial sponsor is not the payer

The first workflow conversation separates five facts: workflow owner, commercial sponsor hypothesis, contracting authority, payer, and willingness to pay.

A CFO, treasury, capital-markets or project-finance title can support routing. It does not establish contracting authority or payer status.

When to ask

Only after DI/DR/DS's five hard workflow gates clear, ask which function would own approval/budget for an external source-linked factual workpaper. Do not ask budget amount or willingness to pay on that call.

Current hypotheses

• PowerBank: borrower CFO / finance sponsor hypothesis.
• Gridi: executive locator + affiliate project-finance sponsor hypothesis.
• KCE: borrower CFO / Finance & Administration sponsor hypothesis, only if interconnection use first binds.

All current contracting authority, payer and WTP states remain unproven/unmeasured. No pilot or price is earned.