Personal correspondence

Make growth earn its operating complexity

Chief Strategy Officer India

I judge a growth plan by the capability and obligations that arrive with its revenue.

I joined Pelquni Business Analytics in Lucknow in June 1996 after completing my commerce degree. We helped regional service businesses understand costs and capacity. My early assignments involved collecting operating records and checking the assumptions in planning models. I could make a spreadsheet reconcile while still misunderstanding the work it described. A supervisor sent me back to a delivery team after I treated two differently skilled hours as interchangeable. The arithmetic had been correct; the business comparison had not. That experience stayed with me because it showed how an apparently precise plan can conceal an important operating distinction.

Revenue is the beginning of a strategy discussion. I also need to know which skills will produce it, which obligations will persist and what assumptions make the timing plausible. A plan that names those conditions can be challenged and improved. A plan that hides them behind a growth percentage is difficult to govern even when the percentage is achieved.

Client businesses: 76; Wealth-advisory organisations served at March 2026
Service revenue: ₹148 crore; Company FY2025–26 revenue; not assets under management
Strategy colleagues: 8; Three leads within a 460-person company

A record of service

2021–present: Chief Strategy OfficerDhurveni Investment Services
2015–2021: Head of corporate developmentDhurveni Investment Services
2009–2015: Commercial-planning managerDhurveni Investment Services
2002–2009: Planning analystDhurveni Investment Services
1996–2002: Business analystPelquni Business Analytics

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I make the operating consequences of growth visible before the organisation commits to them.

I am chief strategy officer at Dhurveni Investment Services in Lucknow. We administer investment records for 76 wealth-advisory businesses and earned ₹148 crore in service revenue in FY2025–26. Our 460 colleagues work across three delivery centres. I lead eight strategy colleagues through three leads, with ₹3.8 crore approved annual function expenditure. The role covers planning, commercial choices and corporate development. It does not include control of client investments, service certification or authority to complete an acquisition without the appropriate executive and board decisions.

My career began in business analysis in 1996. Working with service organisations taught me that two contracts with similar revenue can create very different demands on people. One fits established work; another depends on a few specialists and an expanding set of exceptions. I moved into planning and later corporate development because I wanted those differences to influence the choice of business we pursued. Today I work with finance and operating leaders to make the assumptions behind a recommendation explicit enough that somebody else can disagree with them intelligently.

The recent decisions on this site concern revenue renewals, acquisition capability and bespoke reporting. We reduced a planning case when signed revenue and likely renewal had been treated alike. We declined a purchase after examining which specialist capability would actually transfer. We also changed the commercial treatment of costly reporting variants, accepting that some clients would choose to leave. None was a simple argument against growth. Each was a decision about what kind of growth our organisation could deliver, what it would cost and which evidence the board needed before committing.

Renewal assumptions changed the plan

A ₹171 crore planning case included unconfirmed renewals as if they were already secured. The reviewed central case was ₹157 crore, with contingent recruitment separated from committed service capacity.

The people behind an acquisition mattered

An acquisition proposal valued a service operation at ₹26 crore. Review found that only 24 of 42 relevant specialists had agreed transfer terms. We declined, recognising ₹38 lakh of due-diligence expense.

Bespoke reporting received a commercial choice

Ninety-four report variants for nineteen clients used 38% of sampled review hours while producing 17% of the relevant service fees. A revised offer separated common reporting from individually priced work.

Current focus

I am improving how the annual plan records renewal uncertainty and the capability needed before new revenue can be responsibly accepted.

Conversations I welcome

I welcome strategy mandates in service companies where management wants operating economics, people and growth choices considered together.

The leadership record

Trusted with consequential decisions.

Formation

Bachelor of CommerceOrvelani Institute of Commerce · 1996

Rakesh changed his acquisition recommendation when the specialist-transfer evidence changed. He kept the purpose of the purchase ahead of the effort already invested in pursuing it.

Kamini TervulaniChief Executive Officer, Dhurveni Investment Services

The full record ↗

Contact

I welcome strategy mandates in service companies where management wants operating economics, people and growth choices considered together.

Board appointments
Executive opportunities

Write to Rakesh Contact page