Personal correspondence

Build a business that sustains useful independence

Chief Executive Officer India

I build a software business around work that more people can complete for themselves.

I joined Praveli Usability Research in Jaipur in June 1997 after completing a computer engineering degree. The firm studied how people used workplace applications. My first assignment was to observe tasks, record where participants became stuck and prepare findings for senior researchers. I initially wanted to explain every difficulty as an interface defect. Experienced colleagues taught me to consider the surrounding task, the person's tools and the instructions they had received. That widened my understanding of software quality. A feature could work exactly as specified and still prevent somebody from completing the work that mattered to them.

A product promise must survive the way a person actually works. I want our commercial choices to pay for that responsibility, including research, maintenance and correction. Accessibility is diminished when it becomes a decorative claim or a reason to speak for users we have not listened to.

Company colleagues: 170; Six functional heads report to the CEO
Annual revenue: ₹54 crore; FY2025–26; ₹6.8 crore operating profit
Organisational customers: 96; Accessible document and workplace software in India

I lead an accessibility software company by connecting useful independence for users with a business that can sustain its promises.

I am chief executive of Tervaqi Accessibility Systems in Jaipur, a company developing accessible document and workplace software. Our 170 colleagues serve 96 organisational customers in India. We recorded ₹54 crore in revenue and ₹6.8 crore in operating profit in FY2025–26. I report to the board, lead six functional heads and have served as an executive director since 2021. Those responsibilities require me to connect product usefulness, expenditure and commercial commitments. They do not make me a representative of every disabled user or a certifier of a customer's compliance.

I began in usability research in 1997. Watching somebody struggle to finish a routine task taught me more than a presentation about an average user. I later managed products and commercial operations, where the same observation became a different question: would the business fund the work needed to remove the barrier, and would the contract support maintaining that improvement? I became CEO in 2019. My role is to ensure that research findings can change the roadmap and the revenue plan, rather than remain an interesting appendix to decisions already made.

The decisions described here include rebuilding an export function that did not preserve document meaning for assistive-technology users, paying properly for research participation and refusing an unlimited support promise inside an attractive reseller agreement. Each decision made a cost visible. We deferred ₹1.1 crore of planned upgrades, funded a wider research programme and accepted a smaller commercial agreement. The resulting account is not a claim that our software works for everyone. It shows how I want our company to respond when evidence reveals a gap between the promise and the task.

The export had to preserve more than appearance

A nine-month, ₹63 lakh rebuild changed document export after structured reading failed in customer workflows. We deferred ₹1.1 crore of upgrades while the issue was addressed.

Research participation became a funded responsibility

We approved ₹18 lakh for supported, paid participation with 18 users, then checked the revised workflow with eight additional participants. Findings changed the roadmap rather than becoming a universal usability score.

A smaller agreement carried an honest service boundary

We declined a proposed ₹4.2 crore reseller deal with unlimited future support. A ₹1.7 crore alternative covered a defined licence scope and three years of support costing an estimated ₹52 lakh.

Current focus

I am strengthening the link between customer promises, research evidence and the maintenance capacity approved in our product plans.

Conversations I welcome

I welcome discussions about software leadership and board contribution where inclusion, commercial judgement and product responsibility must be considered together.

The leadership record

Trusted with consequential decisions.

In the boardroom

Tervaqi Accessibility SystemsExecutive Director · 2021–present

Formation

Bachelor of Engineering in Computer EngineeringAsterquni Institute of Engineering · 1997

Kavish brought the cost of the export correction and the delayed revenue to the same decision. The board could see what it was approving and what remained uncertain.

Suvra DelsaniBoard Chair, Tervaqi Accessibility Systems

The full record ↗

Contact

I welcome discussions about software leadership and board contribution where inclusion, commercial judgement and product responsibility must be considered together.

Board appointments
Executive opportunities

Write to Kavish Contact page