The work around the screen shaped my marketing

My first job after an MBA at Velqari Commerce College was account coordination at Nolqeri Events in Jaipur. I joined in June 2000, after completing a commerce degree in 1998 and the full-time management course in May 2000. The company organised professional events and exhibitions. My work involved keeping the client's requirements connected with suppliers and the operating team. A venue could look settled in a presentation while practical questions remained unanswered. I learned to ask what each person believed had been agreed before treating a polished proposal as a shared understanding.

I did not manage an event business or own a large budget in that first appointment. I supported account managers, kept records and attended operating reviews. The experience mattered because I heard both the promise and the difficulties of delivering it. A room configuration could change; a client might assume staffing was included; a supplier might understand an equipment description differently. Those were not always failures of effort. Sometimes the original explanation had left too much for each party to imagine. I became interested in communication that helped a buyer understand the practical choice.

In April 2005 I joined Dorvuli Venue Software as a marketing executive. Its planning tools were sold to people whose work I recognised, but I had to learn the distinction between a software capability and an event outcome. I worked with product demonstrations, customer visits and sales materials. The product could help a venue see its diary and plan its space; it did not supply the people, equipment or approvals needed to run the occasion. Moving from services into software made me careful about using a successful event photograph as though it proved the scope of the product.

I became customer-segment marketing manager in April 2010. The role required more than different wording for different venue sizes. Exhibition centres, conference venues and recurring professional-event operators made purchasing decisions at different points in their calendars. Some could examine software while rebuilding their operating process; others were already committed to an event and had no realistic room for a new implementation. Leading six colleagues taught me to connect the audience definition with its decision window. A contact list was not a plan for when a customer could act.

Marketing director followed in April 2016. I led fourteen colleagues through two managers and took responsibility for ₹3.8 crore annual expense by the end of the appointment. I worked more closely with implementation and partner teams because many expectations were formed outside our own website. A partner might combine software with services in a useful offer, but the buyer still needed to understand who was supplying each part. I also became responsible for discussing expenditure that did not produce the result we expected, without hiding it behind a larger count of contacts.

I became CMO in April 2021. Today I lead twenty-one marketing colleagues through three managers, with ₹6.7 crore annual expense. Dorvuli employed 340 people in March 2026 and recorded ₹132 crore revenue in FY 2025–26. Girish Talqeni is CEO, and Anita Mernuvi leads customer implementation. My remit is the commercial explanation and marketing investment; product capability, implementation acceptance and venue operations retain their own owners. I present to directors when they review commercial plans, but I hold no statutory board appointment.

The first-year cost correction concerned an example I had approved. A ₹1.2 lakh licence headline left out ₹0.8 lakh setup and ₹0.6 lakh required training for the illustrated configuration. The relevant first-year example was ₹2.6 lakh before taxes, not the smaller number. We changed the explanation and reviewed affected enquiries. In another campaign, 73 of 120 venue conversations concerned events already committed. Interest was real, but the timing did not support the immediate purchasing assumption. I stopped that campaign and funded a more specific pilot without claiming its future return.

Partner presentations produced a third lesson. Twelve of thirty implied that our software company delivered physical event production. Nine were corrected and three withdrawn. I accepted the cost of reworking the proposition because the distinction should not first emerge after a sale. I speak Hindi and English, and I remain based in Jaipur. My next contribution should preserve that connection between commercial ambition and the work someone must actually perform. A clear boundary can help a customer choose; it need not make the proposition timid.

Open to Board appointments · Executive opportunities

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