Served as a director
Niravel Diagnostic Services
Company board, executive director
January 2021–present
Participates in company decisions and presents the executive operating plan; this appointment is not independent.
Ritika Srinivasan · Chief Executive Officer · India
What a board needs to know about the patient journey
My contribution to a board
I can help a healthcare-services board examine what its operating reports leave the patient to resolve. A network may show completed appointments, collected payments and uploaded reports while the person attending still lacks a clear next step. The board should not manage every administrative exception, but it needs evidence about recurring gaps, their owners and the resources required to address them. My experience connects that evidence with the commercial consequences of a proposed response.
I would contribute as a non-clinical operating leader. I do not interpret diagnostic results or claim that management authority replaces the judgement of qualified professionals. A useful governance arrangement should make that distinction clear while ensuring that clinical and administrative responsibilities meet at the right points. I can ask how the organisation knows a handoff has occurred, who examines unresolved patterns and whether financial measures create pressure that the board has not acknowledged.
My present directorship is executive, and I would have to change how I work in an external role. I would ask for evidence through agreed board channels rather than instruct a centre manager. Committee participation would follow the board’s needs and applicable composition requirements. I am ready to contribute to risk and patient-service oversight and to discussions about management capability. I am not claiming specialist audit expertise or offering to chair a clinical committee.
Committee contribution
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Risk management and patient-service oversight · Nomination and remuneration, subject to the board’s composition and applicable requirements |
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 22 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Diagnostic services · Outpatient healthcare · Healthcare administration
- Company type
- Professionally governed healthcare-services company with clearly defined clinical authority
- Company stage
- Expanding its network or preparing a transition in executive leadership
The seat I am pursuing
I would be interested in a board willing to fund the practical conditions of a patient-service commitment and to examine what its growth plan asks the organisation to do differently. A chair who invites qualified disagreement and protects the distinction between clinical judgement and commercial preference would matter to me. I would not accept a role whose main purpose was to obtain access to Niravel’s network or to add a healthcare title to a board without defining the contribution. The useful question is whether my operating experience helps directors see an overlooked consequence of a decision. That should be tested during the appointment process, with the same care given to conflicts and available time as to the relevance of my career.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Proficiency assessment passed
In this fictional career, I registered in the IICA Independent Directors’ Databank in February 2026 and passed its online proficiency self-assessment in May 2026. Those steps do not constitute an appointment or establish independence for a particular company.
- IICA databank learning modules and online proficiency self-assessment, completed in May 2026 in this fictional record.
- Company-secretary-led briefings on Companies Act responsibilities, conflicts and the different requirements that may apply to a listed entity, including SEBI LODR.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Niravel Diagnostic Services
Invited operating reviews before director appointment
2016–2020
Presented capacity and patient-service reviews as COO; attendance did not confer a board vote or directorship.
Judgement in practice
Retaining the unresolved eighteen, 2024
When the report-delivery review had reconciled 109 of 127 cases, a draft executive summary described the exercise as substantially complete. I asked that the remaining eleven unreachable recipients and seven verification cases remain separately visible. The service head was concerned that the wording would make a considerable effort look unsuccessful. I agreed that the work deserved recognition, but not at the cost of changing the meaning of unresolved. The board received the three states and the next action for each category. No administrative colleague was asked to bypass an identity check or discuss a clinical result to improve the count. In an external board setting, I would use the same distinction: acknowledge progress while asking whether a summary has removed the very uncertainty directors need to understand. I would also define the reporting states earlier so that managers do not discover the distinction only when preparing the final paper.
Showing the capacity cost of access, 2019
During the appointment-access pilot, I was asked whether we could report the improved waiting measure without highlighting the reduction in available slots. The argument was that the board would otherwise focus on lost revenue and discourage a useful service change. I took the opposite view. If the board was to support the arrangement beyond a pilot, it needed to understand what it would fund. We presented the 24-slot daily reduction, the ₹18 lakh expenditure and the observed waiting figures together, explaining that the patient groups were different. The board accepted continued evaluation with those limitations visible. That was an operating presentation before I became a director, not a decision I made on the board’s behalf. The experience taught me that an appealing outcome becomes a more credible recommendation when its continuing resource requirement is part of the same account.
My first year on a board
For a first external appointment, I would begin by understanding how the board distinguishes professional clinical oversight, executive accountability and routine centre management. The induction should include the company’s legal structure, reporting arrangements and significant commercial relationships, as well as visits agreed with the chair and management. I would want to hear how a centre explains a complicated visit to a patient, without collecting identifiable patient records for my own use.
I would then study how the board receives evidence of service problems. Does it see only averages, or can it identify recurring exceptions that need an enterprise decision? My initial contribution might be to an existing review of network expansion or management succession, where operating assumptions are already under discussion. I would avoid imposing the formats used by Niravel before understanding the other organisation. At the end of the year, I would ask the chair whether my questions had improved the board’s grasp of an important choice and whether I had respected the boundary between challenge and intervention.
Conflicts and their management
Healthcare networks can share clinicians, property interests, vendors, institutional customers and referral relationships. I would disclose relevant connections and work through a review of the prospective company and associated entities before accepting a role. Confidential patient, employee or commercial material from my executive position would not become a resource for another board. Where a conflict arose, I would follow the agreed disclosure, recusal and recording process rather than assume that a general statement of good intent was sufficient.
The proposed twenty-two days a year are conditional on employer consent and a realistic calendar covering preparation, meetings, visits and additional work. The company would need to assess my eligibility and independence under the requirements applicable to it, including the Companies Act and, where relevant, SEBI LODR. I would use the company secretary and appropriate advisers for that review. Databank registration and passing an assessment are preparation steps; they do not settle the relationships, suitability or obligations of a particular appointment.
My independence statement
I serve as an executive director of Niravel. Any proposed independent appointment elsewhere would require the company’s formal assessment of eligibility, relationships and independence; I do not assume those conditions from my job title.