Meera Valliappan · Chief Operating Officer · India
Most manufacturing boards I have presented to are well equipped to examine a balance sheet and less equipped to examine a plant. They receive a productivity figure, a lost-time injury rate and a capacity utilisation number, and they rarely see what sits underneath: how many of the people on the line were hired four weeks ago, how many guards were bypassed to hold a rate, or which design decision will show up in field returns two summers from now. I can help a board ask for that evidence without trying to run the factory. I would bring twenty-nine years of plant, quality and supply experience, including mistakes I made and reported. I would also bring an understanding of how promoter-led listed companies make operating decisions, and where management may be reluctant to slow output for a safety or quality concern. I would not claim expertise I lack. My financial knowledge is that of an operator who has worked with good CFOs, not that of an accountant, and I would expect to learn a great deal from the other directors.
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to chair | A safety, health and environment committee, where a board has constituted one |
| Ready to join | Risk Management Committee · Audit Committee, as a financially literate member rather than its accounting expert · Corporate Social Responsibility Committee |
I am pursuing one independent seat on a manufacturing board where operating judgement is genuinely missing, not one where it would duplicate an existing director's experience. A listed mid-cap or a large unlisted public company with several plants, a significant contract workforce and an expansion plan would suit me best. I would be comfortable as a member of the Risk Management and Audit Committees, and could chair a safety, health and environment committee where one exists. Because I am not a whole-time director of a listed company, the SEBI LODR limit on listed independent directorships would not be my binding constraint; my employer's consent and my calendar would be. I would rather serve one board well than several adequately.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Proficiency assessment passed
I registered with the IICA Independent Directors' Databank in January 2025 and passed its online proficiency self-assessment test in May 2025. I keep the registration current. Passing the assessment meets one requirement of the databank framework; it says nothing about my suitability for any particular board.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors: quarterly operations, safety and capital-expenditure reviews
April 2022–present
Presents the quarterly operations and safety report and the annual capital plan to the board as COO; not a director of the listed company.
Reported to a committee
Risk Management Committee
2022–present
Reports twice a year on plant safety, supplier concentration and seasonal capacity risk, and answers the committee's follow-up questions.
Served as a director
Board of a wholly owned subsidiary; no board committees
March 2023–present
Non-independent director nominated by the parent company; oversees the brushless motor line's capital plan, safety record and the pricing of its sales to the parent, reviewed with the parent's finance team.
In 2023 our lost-time injury rate fell for the third successive quarter, and a director suggested we had solved the summer safety problem. I asked the safety head to separate the figures for permanent and contract workers and to count near misses and first-aid cases. Contract workers' minor injuries had risen, and several had been treated without lost time because contractors moved people to lighter work. The headline was accurate but incomplete. I would bring the same question to another board: before accepting a safety improvement, ask whose injuries the measure includes, whether reporting has changed and whether the trend survives a different way of counting. That is not distrust of management. It is the board's job to understand what a number can and cannot show before it relies on it.
When the Sanand plant fell twelve months behind schedule, the first draft of our board paper offered a new opening date and described the delay as external. I rewrote it to show the revised cost, the equipment still in storage, the customer orders we would serve from Tamil Nadu at higher freight cost and the assumptions behind the new date. The board approved the revised plan, but one director asked for monthly updates rather than quarterly ones, which was the right call. As a director I would ask for that kind of paper on any capital project: what has changed, what it now costs, what the new date depends on and what management would do if it slipped again. A delayed project is rarely the problem; a board learning about the delay late usually is.
My first months would be spent learning how the company actually makes its products and its money. I would ask the chair and the company secretary for three years of board and committee papers, then visit each major plant at least once, including a night shift, with management's agreement and a clear purpose. I would meet the statutory auditors, the internal auditor and the heads of safety and quality, and ask each what they think the board does not see clearly enough. In committee work I would follow two or three recurring operating risks from management's report through to the minutes and the actions taken. I would keep my questions to the board and its committees rather than give instructions to managers, however tempting it is for a former plant head. Before the year ends I would ask the chair for direct feedback, compare it with my own notes on where my questions helped or distracted, and agree what I should do more or less of.
Thenvayu buys copper wire, steel, aluminium, plastics and controller boards, and sells fans, coolers and water heaters through distributors and large retailers. Any company in those chains, or in consumer electricals generally, would need careful review. I would decline outright a competitor, a material supplier or a material customer of Thenvayu. For other companies, I would disclose my executive role, my employee stock options in Thenvayu and my directorship of its subsidiary, and ask the prospective company to check its own counterparties against them. If a conflict arose during a term, I would declare it, leave the discussion and record it; if it recurred on matters central to the board's work, I would offer to step down. Time is a real constraint as well. The cooler season peaks between February and May, so I would agree a meeting calendar that allows me to prepare properly during those months.
Before accepting any appointment I would review my position against section 149(6) of the Companies Act with the company secretary and my own adviser, including any business that Thenvayu, its suppliers or my relatives have with the company or its promoters. I would turn down a company that competes with Thenvayu or trades with it in a material way.