Siddharth Kavarappan · Chief Product Officer · India
A board overseeing a consumer business usually sees customers through revenue, collections and the occasional escalation. I would add a different lens: whether customers can verify what the company has told them, and how long the company takes to put things right when it falls short. The evidence would come from the company's own records, such as complaint categories, closure times, repeat contacts and the documents customers receive at each stage. I have spent twenty-five years on several sides of staged commitments: as a site engineer signing inspection records, at a lender releasing money against them and at a developer presenting them to buyers. That makes me alert to the gap between a record that exists and a record that proves something. I would not offer operational advice to management or present myself as a technology specialist. I would read the papers in full, ask questions in risk and customer discussions, and say plainly when I think a reported improvement rests on a measure that has changed. I have presented to a board and reported to a risk committee, but I have not served as a director, and I expect to learn from colleagues who have.
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Risk management committee · A board committee on customers or technology, where the company has one |
I am pursuing one independent directorship on a listed company or a large unlisted public company whose customers commit money before they receive the service. Education, healthcare and long-contract consumer services are where my experience translates most directly. I would join a risk management committee, and a board committee on customers or technology where one exists; I am not ready to chair a committee and would not accept a seat on that basis. My databank registration and assessment are preconditions for being considered, not evidence of suitability. With no current directorships, the statutory limits on the number of boards are not my constraint; my employer's calendar is. Twenty-two days a year allows proper preparation for one board and its committees, and I would not take a second seat while I remain an executive.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Proficiency assessment passed
I registered with the IICA Independent Directors' Databank in January 2025 and passed the online proficiency self-assessment test in August 2025. Neither step settles whether I would be independent of a particular company; that turns on the relationships examined under s.149(6) at the time of an appointment, which I would review with the company's own advisers.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors
April 2022–present
Presents a quarterly buyer and possession report covering stage evidence, payment disputes, cancellations and snag closure; attends for that item and is not a director.
Reported to a committee
Risk management committee of the board
2016–2018
Reported digital-journey complaints and process failures in under-construction lending twice a year as product lead.
When buyer queries fell after the stage-record change, the first board summary credited the entire fall to the new app. I asked my own team to separate the effect of the change from a seasonal dip and from two projects that had reached possession and moved to a different channel. The adjusted improvement was about two thirds of the headline, and I presented that figure. On a board I would ask management the same question: has the measure changed, and what else moved in the same period? I would ask it without implying bad faith. Most overstated improvements I have seen came from enthusiasm rather than concealment, and directors who accept the larger number in good years make it harder for management to report the smaller one when conditions turn.
The payment-demand change moved about ₹38 crore of collections out of a financial year, and our chief financial officer was right that it mattered to discussions with our investor. A board facing that choice should neither wave the cost away nor let it settle the matter alone. I would want the cost of the existing practice stated with equal care: the disputed interest, the staff time spent on disputes and the regulatory exposure of charging buyers for our own delays. I would also ask who would watch the weekly backlog after approval and what would trigger a review. I believe the decision we reached was right, but it worked because finance was given a measure to monitor, not because the product team won an argument.
My opening quarter would go on reading and listening. I would ask the company secretary for two years of board and committee minutes, the risk register and the complaint reports that reach directors, and I would ask management which customer measures they trust least. Through the chair and the chief executive, I would visit the places where customers are served, with a stated purpose and no instructions for staff. By the second quarter I would expect to contribute in committee on questions I know well: how customer commitments are recorded, how exceptions are escalated and whether a reported improvement is comparable with the previous period. I would keep a list of subjects where I am still learning, including the sector's own regulation, and take them to the chair rather than guess. At the end of the year I would ask the chair for a frank view of whether my questions improved the board's decisions or merely lengthened its meetings.
My conflicts follow the money and the data that pass through a residential developer. Lenders finance our buyers and sometimes our projects; contractors, consultants and software vendors work on our sites and systems; channel partners sell our homes; landowners enter joint development agreements with us. A company with any of those connections to Mukilvanam would need careful review, and a housing finance company or a property developer would be outside my range altogether. I would disclose my employment, my employer's material relationships and any personal holdings to the nomination committee in writing before a conversation went further. During an appointment, I would declare an interest at the start of any agenda item touching one of those relationships and leave the discussion whenever the chair judged it appropriate. I would not carry buyer, pricing or lender information from my employer into another boardroom, or the other way. If exclusions became routine, I would step down rather than remain a director absent from the decisions that matter.
I am a salaried executive of a residential developer and hold no shares or options in it. Before accepting a seat I would set out every relationship that my employer and I have with the company, its promoters, its lenders and its suppliers, and ask the company's advisers to test them against s.149(6) of the Companies Act. Where a relationship looked borderline, I would decline rather than depend on a narrow reading.