Presented to the Board or a committee
Ravneshi Illustrated Stories
Board reader-product and publisher-workflow reviews
April 2022–present
Presents product choices and evidence through the CEO without holding a statutory directorship.
Aparna Deshvarli · Chief Product Officer · India
A board question about the choice a product removes
My contribution to a board
I could help directors examine which choice a product default makes for the person using it and for the creator whose work it adapts. My experience includes approving a crop that removed words, retaining two reading modes after a small study and making chapter-level preparation explicit. I would first understand the receiving company’s product, customers and creator relationships rather than assume the same interface choices apply elsewhere. The board should be able to ask what the convenience preserves, what it removes and how management knows the difference. Directors do not need to select every screen layout, but they should understand a material product assumption before it becomes a widely repeated experience. My contribution could connect research evidence with the consequences of a default while leaving design, engineering, editorial and rights decisions with the people responsible for them.
Committee contribution
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Product and customer-experience discussions · Creator and digital-service risk oversight where constituted |
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 23 days per year
- Current directorships
- 0
- Sectors
- Illustrated-story and creative digital products · Enterprises serving both a creator and the person using their work
- Company type
- A private digital-product enterprise whose board wants the effect of defaults and adaptation choices examined
- Company stage
- Expanding reader products or revising how creative work is prepared and experienced
The seat I am pursuing
I would explore a first non-executive contribution with a chair who wants the assumptions inside product convenience examined carefully. My current exposure comes through executive presentations and reporting, not statutory service. Further preparation and a specific appointment review would precede acceptance. I could join product, customer or creator-risk discussions alongside established financial, legal and governance skills, without claiming readiness to chair a statutory committee. The chair should explain which product decision the board finds difficult to challenge and how management presents uncertainty from research. I could be useful where a less uniform experience is acceptable when it preserves meaning or a legitimate preference. The aim would be to ask better questions about the choice being made, while accountable teams continue to design, build and operate the product and creators retain their respective editorial authority.
Board and committee exposure
Reported to a committee
Ravneshi Illustrated Stories
Reader-experience correction review through the chief executive
April 2017–March 2022
Reported the crop correction, the reviewed page set and the limits of the resulting claim.
Judgement in practice
A cleaner view removed part of the work it promised to improve
The selected page review found nine affected pages among twenty-four examined. I would ask directors how an adapted view is checked for meaning and whether the original remains available when the adaptation is unsuitable. The correction of those nine pages did not establish that the entire catalogue had passed the same review. Oversight should preserve that limit while examining the workflow that allowed my approval to become a released experience. Creators needed a preview and readers needed a full-page fallback. The board’s question is about the responsibility and evidence behind adaptation, not the exact crop coordinates. My error shows why visual polish can be persuasive while still requiring a separate account of what has been removed from the underlying work.
A small study justified a choice without deciding everyone’s preference
Ten participants preferred guided panels and eight preferred the whole page in the selected adult study. I would ask the board how management uses that observation without presenting it as a market-wide percentage or proof that the smaller preference should disappear. Supporting both views introduced complexity, but preserved two useful ways into the story. Directors should understand that trade-off and the next questions the research needs to examine. They should not become the product team deciding every navigation detail. The contribution I could make is to distinguish a bounded feature decision from a universal claim about users, and to ask whether the product still allows a person to choose differently when the evidence does not justify removing that option.
My first year on a board
I would follow one material product choice from research through approval, release and the experience it creates for readers and creators. Through the chair’s agreed process, I would meet product, research, engineering, commercial and rights owners to understand where a concern can change the decision. I would review a corrected feature alongside a successful release, because the response to an attractive but mistaken design reveals how the organisation learns. Twenty-three proposed annual days must include learning, preparation, meetings and exceptional demands alongside executive work. I would ask the chair whether my questions improve oversight or pull directors into selecting interfaces. At the first-year review, I would want a significant product discussion to state more clearly what choice is being offered or removed, whose authority is involved and which observed result supports the next step. I would also ask whether the correction reached the actual experience rather than remaining only a lesson in an internal presentation.
Conflicts and their management
My role provides access to unpublished artwork, publisher plans, reader research, product roadmaps and commercial terms. I would disclose employer, investor, publisher, creator, research-partner and adviser connections before receiving protected material from another enterprise. The prospective company must assess eligibility and independence against its own circumstances, and my employer must consent to a commitment I can meet. I would not use a creator’s unreleased work or a private product roadmap to benefit another board. Recusal may deal with an occasional overlap, but repeated exclusion from the central product agenda could make the appointment unsuitable. Capacity must also allow for a significant correction in my executive role. I would decline a seat that expected privileged access to publisher rights or treated a director as a free product-design function. The contribution should improve collective scrutiny while preserving management’s responsibility for the experience delivered.
My independence statement
Employer, investor, publisher, creator, research-partner and adviser relationships require a specific review. My lack of personal equity does not establish independence for a proposed appointment.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
Governance learning and any registration relevant to a contemplated seat remain incomplete. This profile makes no claim to a completed proficiency result or an assessment exemption.
- Preparing to examine product choices through collective oversight
- Learning to question reader and creator consequences without taking design approval from management