From assembling the records to challenging the commitment

Mandate

Connect financial reporting and commercial commitments before decisions are released

Outcomes

• Made pending credit releases visible in business-account exposure
• Declined a threshold-only stock purchase while preserving demand-based ordering
• Presented financial assumptions and unresolved consequences to directors

Decisions in context

I lead nineteen finance colleagues through three heads within ₹3.2 crore annual function expense. The role connects reporting, planning and the challenge of commercial commitments, but customer and purchasing negotiations remain with Rahul Nerqvali's team. I report to the CEO and present material financial recommendations to directors without holding a statutory appointment. The credit-order decision and supplier rebate review both required finance to describe an alternative that colleagues could implement. Simply refusing a transaction would have left the business with a different problem and no useful route forward. I also carry the lesson of my earlier voucher presentation:the CFO must question the meaning created by a report, including a report that supports an attractive result. My authority does not remove the need for specialist advice, documented approval and a later account of what actually happened.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; considering a suitable CFO mandate and a prepared first outside board contribution

Mandate

Strengthen financial control and the interpretation of retail management reports

Outcomes

• Separated voucher receipts and goods supplied in campaign reporting
• Acknowledged own approval of a misleading internal total
• Connected reconciled records to the business meaning presented

Decisions in context

The controller appointment gave me responsibility for fourteen colleagues and ₹2.4 crore annual function expense. I worked across shop accounts, central finance and management reporting. In 2018 I approved a campaign account that added voucher receipts to later redemption purchases, even though the statutory ledger separated them. Correcting that interpretation changed how I led reviews. I asked colleagues to explain what a total represented and why its components could be combined, not merely whether each component reconciled. The ₹14 lakh, six-week repair included staff explanation because a correct replacement figure would not by itself undo the meaning of the original presentation. I had to be explicit that the error had survived my approval. This period prepared me for CFO responsibility by making the quality of a financial narrative part of control rather than a task left entirely to its audience.

Reason for the move

Appointed CFO with enterprise planning and commercial-finance responsibility

Mandate

Bring shop and business-account records into a usable central finance account

Outcomes

• Developed understanding of different retail transaction sequences
• Connected account queries to shop and commercial explanations
• Kept unresolved balances visible through management review

Decisions in context

I joined Perqavni to work inside one enterprise rather than deliver accounts support to several clients. Nine colleagues worked within ₹1.3 crore annual function expense. Shops and business accounts produced different payment patterns, and a central explanation could become misleading if it ignored the customer's route through the business. I spent time with operating colleagues to understand those differences, while retaining unresolved matters for the controller's review. My responsibility was not to negotiate customer credit or decide the buying range. It was to make the financial account sufficiently clear for those decisions and to explain where the records still left a question open. That combination of practical learning and financial discipline became important later when the business added more channels and management wanted a single account of commercial performance.

Reason for the move

Promoted to financial controller as the retail business expanded

Mandate

Coordinate reliable client accounts and escalate unresolved transaction questions

Outcomes

• Developed junior colleagues' confidence in raising account exceptions
• Separated delivery responsibility from client approval authority
• Followed unresolved items beyond the completed reporting date

Decisions in context

I supervised seven colleagues within ₹65 lakh annual delivery expense. Our clients retained their own financial decisions, while I was accountable for the work that supported them. Leading the team showed me how a senior person's confidence could close a discussion before an unresolved item had been understood. I began asking junior colleagues to bring the transaction sequence as well as the final balance, so that a question did not depend on their confidence in challenging a client. The work also exposed the limit of an external delivery role:we could explain a problem and still see little of the decision that followed. I moved into retail finance because I wanted continuing responsibility for how the account was used, with enough operating contact to understand why a technically tidy explanation sometimes failed to help management.

Reason for the move

Joined Perqavni for an in-house retail finance appointment

Mandate

Prepare reconciliations and trace transaction records for senior review

Outcomes

• Learned to follow one transaction across several records
• Prepared unresolved account differences for experienced reviewers
• Distinguished reconciled arithmetic from a complete commercial explanation

Decisions in context

I entered accounts work after completing a commerce degree in 1993. I had no direct reports or independent spending authority and worked within a six-person client team. My tasks involved preparing reconciliations and finding the records behind differences that senior colleagues would assess. The work taught me that an amount could appear in several places because one transaction had moved through several stages. It also taught me not to infer a customer's intention or a commercial settlement merely because two balances could be made to agree. At that stage I assembled the facts and explained the remaining question. Those habits became a foundation for supervision, but they were not proof that I would never make a reporting mistake. My later voucher-account error showed why the discipline needs to be reapplied when the numbers become more attractive.

Reason for the move

Promoted to supervise client accounts delivery