The record existed but the work waited

I grew up in Nagaland and completed computer science at Vaqneli Science College in May 2001. My first appointment was as an applications assistant at Tervuni Learning Services in Dimapur. I helped maintain class, attendance and administrative applications under a systems supervisor. When a tutor said a student had disappeared from a list, the database might still contain the record. The task had failed because the person who needed it could no longer find or use it in the expected place. That distinction between stored data and useful work became an early interest.

I was learning the technical basics, but I was also learning to listen without translating a complaint too quickly into the category I already understood. A tutor might need a corrected class list before the next session, while my first response was to explain why the underlying record had not been lost. Both statements could be true, yet only one addressed the immediate problem. Senior colleagues helped me provide a practical response and then investigate the cause. I did not own policy or the wider technology budget in that role.

In April 2006 I joined Qalvuri Software Assurance as an internal systems analyst. A company that tested software for customers still had its own ordinary administrative difficulties. I worked on applications used by employees and managers, reporting to the IT manager rather than leading client test programmes. Different departments could attach different meanings to the same status. I learned to ask what action a record authorised and which person could resolve a disagreement, instead of assuming that an interface should simply copy the value more quickly.

I became applications lead in April 2012, with ten colleagues. The promotion changed my responsibility from investigating individual problems to making the team capable of supporting a coherent service. We worked on releases, user guidance and the handover to support. I learned that an application could pass its technical checks while the instructions around it still referred to an earlier process. I also became more deliberate about involving departmental owners before a change was described as ready. Their participation was necessary evidence, not a ceremonial sign-off after the development work had ended.

The head-of-IT appointment followed in April 2017. I led twenty-two colleagues and brought applications, employee devices and service support into one plan. This widened my view of how people experienced technology during an ordinary working day. A support queue could look efficient while employees worked around the same unresolved problem. A search service could return a result quickly while the result was out of date. I began reviewing small groups of actual tasks with colleagues, alongside the availability and closure measures already used by the team.

I became CIO in April 2022. Qalvuri now employs 520 people and recorded ₹178 crore revenue in FY2025–26. My thirty-three colleagues work through four managers within ₹14.6 crore annual operating expenditure. I report to Naveen Pelqari; Grace Dolqeni leads employee technology services. The role includes presenting internal-technology matters to directors, but I have no board appointment. I am accountable for the systems we provide and the evidence behind our service claims, while business owners retain policy decisions and client teams retain responsibility for their customer work.

The search correction was uncomfortable because I had supported a broad index as a way to reduce the time people spent asking where a document lived. In a review of 120 practical queries, seventeen first results were superseded guidance. More searchable material had not necessarily produced a more dependable answer. We worked with owners to replace thirteen and withdraw four while their current position was decided. The technical change could preserve status and ownership; it could not invent the policy answer that a department had not yet agreed.

The ticket review revealed a similar gap in our own reporting. We had closed some requests after a no-response interval, even where the employee's task remained unresolved. Reopening forty-four requests and changing the process required us to accept a less flattering closure report. The office integration raised a different responsibility: current employee names and addresses could change without rewriting the identity behind an earlier approval. These experiences make me cautious about declaring a process complete from one system field. I speak English, Nagamese and Hindi. My next step should build on this practical judgement while preserving the distinction between executive service ownership and the collective responsibilities of a future board role.

Open to Board appointments · Executive opportunities

Languages / English · Nagamese · Hindi