Chief Executive Officer / India
The operating account changed the executive decision
- Company employees
- 210
- Six executives report to the CEO
- Annual company revenue
- ₹84 crore
- FY2025–26: ₹68 crore lease income and ₹16 crore estate services
- Privately owned workshop properties
- 2 estates
- Invented properties; no actual public concession represented
Decisions & consequences
012017: eighteen completed units did not support eighteen handover dates
As COO in 2017, I approved an eighteen-workshop handover programme from a construction-completion summary. The report described the defined building work. I used it to support a wider commercial commitment without bringing the shared-service account into the same decision. Harish Zervaqli’s operating review found that twelve units supported the proposed handover under the defined estate-service conditions, while six still required work on the associated arrangements. The construction milestone was not invented; my interpretation of what it settled was too broad.
Commercial colleagues wanted to preserve all eighteen dates because prospective occupiers were arranging their own fitouts and moves. I understood the disruption a change would cause. I also knew that retaining the dates would leave operating teams trying to fulfil a promise whose supporting conditions were unfinished. I recommended changing the six dates and explaining the actual boundary of completion. Qualified building, engineering and tenant-use approvals remained separate; the estate-service review was not presented as a universal permission to occupy or operate.
The board authorised ₹4.2 crore and twenty weeks for the defined remaining work and coordination. The twelve supported handovers continued through their own required processes. The six revised commitments were sequenced against evidence from the responsible service owners. The expenditure was additional programme cost, not a claimed saving or a transfer of every tenant responsibility to the landlord. I owned the earlier approval and the need to communicate the correction before the occupiers’ plans became more dependent on it.
At the programme’s reviewed conclusion, all eighteen had the defined estate-service handover evidence, with the six having followed revised dates. That result did not certify the tenants’ individual production uses or claim that no later defect could occur. It changed our acceptance discussion: a milestone had to be accompanied by the responsibilities it actually completed and those still outside it. The trade-off was a less attractive timetable and explicit cost in return for an operating commitment supported by the right account of readiness.
2022: an occupier request did not automatically become a landlord asset
Fourteen occupier requests reached the executive team in 2022 with a combined proposed investment of ₹11 crore. Commercial colleagues described them as improvements needed to support important relationships. Nine concerned common-estate work, four concerned tenant-specific production equipment and one combined both. Treating the whole set as another property programme would have concealed a decision about the business the landlord was prepared to own, maintain and carry when a tenant’s requirements changed.
Engineering, finance and contract colleagues separated the mixed request and examined the responsibilities attached to each part. The resulting proposal comprised ₹7.8 crore of common-estate improvements and ₹3.2 crore of tenant-specific equipment. Those amounts remained proposals until their respective approvals. The commercial sponsor wanted the landlord to fund the complete set, arguing that one commitment would simplify negotiations and show support for occupiers. I preferred to preserve the relationship through a clearer boundary rather than accept equipment responsibility merely because it was commercially convenient.
I recommended the ₹7.8 crore common-estate programme to the board and left the ₹3.2 crore tenant-specific equipment outside our investment proposition. The board approved the common work subject to its defined professional and contractual processes. Tenants retained their own equipment choices, funding and operating responsibilities; no alternative financing or purchase was invented to make that route appear complete. The review and agreement work used ₹46 lakh over twelve weeks, separately identified from the common capital programme.
The decision narrowed our proposed commitment without claiming a ₹3.2 crore realised saving. It also gave up the simplicity of a single landlord-funded package, requiring more careful conversations about ownership and maintenance. The outcome was a defined capital boundary and an approved common programme, not evidence that every occupier accepted the arrangement or that every asset had already been installed. I wanted the estate company to support its occupiers without gradually becoming an owner of production equipment whose use and risks belonged to a different operating enterprise.
2025: the company needed an authority schedule that did not wait for me
In 2025 I reviewed forty-two recent estate decisions after managers described routine matters repeatedly returning to the CEO. I had encouraged escalation when a decision seemed uncertain, but the resulting practice no longer distinguished uncertainty from a lack of written delegation. The review found twenty-eight decisions held for my involvement and fourteen already handled under local authority. Of the twenty-eight, twenty-six could fit a defined operating delegation; two involved capital commitments that needed to remain reserved.
Central colleagues preferred to keep the familiar escalation habit because it reduced the chance of a local manager interpreting an unclear boundary differently. That concern was reasonable. I did not respond by telling managers to act first and explain later. Harish and the responsible finance and contract owners worked through the evidence, scope and reporting needed for each class of decision. The proposal changed authorised responsibility rather than treating confidence or seniority as a substitute for it.
The board approved the revised authority schedule through its governance process. Management used ₹58 lakh and ten weeks for documentation, training and review. In the mapped set, forty decisions could be addressed within the defined operating arrangements, comprising the fourteen already delegated and twenty-six newly clarified decisions. The two capital matters remained reserved. Those classifications did not mean that every real future case would be identical or that a manager could ignore a new technical, financial or contractual condition.
I gave up personal involvement in decisions that had made me feel well informed but had not required my judgement. Reporting and exception review continued, with professional permissions unchanged. The outcome was a clearer operating authority account, not a measured claim of faster service or higher occupancy. I wanted a company capable of acting responsibly through its managers and of bringing me the decisions that genuinely needed executive or board attention. The change tested whether I was willing to build that enterprise even when it made my role less visible in the daily sequence of approvals.