Following the number back to the service

The peripheral site offered lower rent, and I liked the discipline that appeared to show. Our depot proposal compared a ₹72 lakh annual property cost with ₹112 lakh at a location closer to the work. Operations then asked us to bring transport and handling into the same decision. Under the stated assumptions, those costs were ₹128 lakh and ₹69 lakh respectively. The apparent recurring advantage reversed. The closer site still required ₹88 lakh fit-out against ₹45 lakh at the peripheral option, so its first modelled year was more expensive. I had started with the most visible property line instead of the service the depot was meant to support.

I grew up in a Sikh family in Ludhiana and completed commerce at the fictional Qormavi College of Commerce in June 1992. In July I joined Levqami Equipment Services as a cost analyst. The business had fifty-seven employees and ₹8.9 crore revenue for FY ending March 1993. I worked in a six-person finance-support group without reports or spending authority. My tasks concerned the costs attached to service activity, including movements that did not fit neatly inside the original quotation. Supervisors taught me to reconcile the account and ask why an expense appeared where it did before treating it as somebody else's inefficiency.

In June 1999 I became commercial planning manager. Levqami employed 176 people and reported ₹31 crore revenue for FY ending March 2000. Ten colleagues worked through two leads within ₹84 lakh annual function expense. I became more involved in comparing proposed service arrangements, while finance and operating leaders retained their respective decisions. A favourable rate meant less when the equipment spent long periods waiting or moving between assignments. I learned to ask how a proposed relationship used the asset through time, rather than judge it entirely from the price attached to its busiest days.

I joined Dazvori as head of fleet planning in September 2006. The company had ninety-one employees and ₹26 crore revenue for FY ending March 2007. Seven planning colleagues worked through two leads within ₹1.4 crore annual expense. Dazvori rented temporary site offices and welfare cabins to construction and industrial projects. It did not operate worker housing or build the projects themselves. Operations and qualified technical colleagues determined placement, preparation and acceptance for the actual use. My work connected demand assumptions, available units and the depot network, with capital approval and delivery ownership kept outside the planning function.

In July 2013 I became head of corporate development. The business had 185 employees and ₹61 crore revenue for FY ending March 2014. Twelve colleagues worked through three leads with ₹2.8 crore annual expense. The role widened the questions from individual fleet requirements to the kind of company we were building. A new region could look attractive while depending on long movements from an existing depot. A partner could introduce customers while asking for commitments that limited future choices. I learned to explain those consequences before a growth proposition became a simple count of new locations or units.

My CSO appointment began in January 2021. Dazvori now has eight depots, 1,800 owned units and 300 employees. FY26 revenue of ₹94 crore comprises ₹72 crore rental and ₹22 crore relocation and site-support services. I lead eighteen strategy colleagues through three leads within ₹4.8 crore FY2026–27 expense. Anita is CEO and Sajid Pezqeli is CFO. My recommendations do not confer independent capital authority, a trading P&L or a statutory board seat. The family vehicle owns 54%, the employee vehicle 18% and a long-term investor 28%; I have no personal equity.

The depot review corrected my own starting point. It retained the closer site's higher first-year subtotal and the limits of the comparison rather than turn a favourable recurring assumption into an achieved saving. The seasonal review then examined ninety event-segment units whose rental revenue left a much smaller amount after defined direct costs, before depreciation and central obligations. We chose a thirty-unit pilot for longer construction-site use without pretending that a different segment would automatically solve every economic question.

Later work connected contracts to their underlying projects. Eight of eighteen reviewed contracts covered half of the selected units and depended on one construction project, despite involving four contractors. The finding changed the sequence of growth proposals; it did not predict insolvency or settle credit policy. A partnership discussion likewise made us examine what wider reach would cost in future choices. We declined a broad five-year exclusive territory proposal and agreed a bounded non-exclusive pilot in two districts instead. The strategy was to learn without presenting a larger map as proof of a stronger business.

After thirty-four years, I am exploring a first external board contribution. I speak Punjabi, Hindi and English. My board exposure has been through executive presentations, without a director's vote. Fictional IICA registration is recorded in April 2026, with proficiency assessment still unfinished and no exemption asserted. Twenty-four days are provisional. I would bring questions about asset-backed service economics, correlated demand and the conditions attached to growth, while learning the prospective enterprise's own financial and operating context. The next responsibility should use that judgement collectively rather than turn me into another company's remote fleet manager.

Open to Board appointments

Languages / Punjabi · Hindi · English