Learning beside the person using the system

I grew up in Aizawl in a household where people moved easily between languages but not always between the language of an official form and the task it described. That distinction stayed with me when I studied computer science at Ehnawel Science College. I completed the degree in May 1998 and joined Darseli Public Systems that July. The company installed and supported administrative software in district offices. My first responsibility was to help users explain what had happened before an error appeared, rather than ask them to translate the experience into the vocabulary of a software engineer.

Support work put me beside the people expected to keep services moving with equipment that was shared, interrupted or unfamiliar. A form could be technically correct and still leave a clerk uncertain about whether a submission had reached the central system. I learnt to reproduce the sequence, including the point where power or connectivity disappeared. I also learnt that an error message can change behaviour. If it sounds like a complete failure when only acknowledgement is missing, a conscientious user may repeat an action that the receiving system has already accepted.

In August 2004 I became an implementation lead at Darseli. I supervised a team working with district-office staff and the company's development group. The role required more than installation. We had to establish how a process would operate when the project team left: who would answer a question, which record would be retained and how a change in local practice would reach the people maintaining the application. I began asking users to carry out a task without coaching. Watching where they hesitated was more informative than asking whether they liked the demonstration.

I joined Zeravien Rural Finance in April 2010 as applications manager. The lender was much smaller than it is today, with nineteen branches and 280 employees. Moving into finance required me to understand the consequences attached to a customer record. A screen response could affect what an officer told a borrower, what finance reconciled and what operations regarded as finished. I did not bring credit expertise from the public-service work. I brought experience of implementation and a willingness to trace an action through the people who depended on it. Credit and compliance colleagues supplied the judgement I did not hold.

The applications team worked closely with branch staff. We documented the difference between a locally stored action and one accepted by the central service, and we spent time on the messages that explained those states. I became more careful about requirements expressed as a single word such as complete. That word might refer to a form, a transmission, an accounting entry or a customer interaction. Before agreeing a change, I wanted the team to establish whose completion it described. This helped developers and operations colleagues discuss the same event without assuming that matching labels meant matching responsibilities.

In July 2017 I became head of technology operations. The remit added infrastructure, service support and suppliers to the applications work. I led 25 colleagues through three managers by the end of that appointment. The business had reached 57 branches, and field-device decisions were becoming more consequential. A handset purchase was no longer simply a unit-price comparison. We needed to understand software support, repair arrangements, battery performance and the duties staff would perform when a device was unavailable. I learnt to connect those questions to the operating plan before a procurement decision made them expensive to revisit.

The CIO appointment followed in January 2022. Today I lead 42 colleagues through four functional heads and report to the CEO. Zeravien has 88 branches, 1,450 employees and a March 2026 loan portfolio of ₹1,380 crore. FY 2026 income was ₹302 crore. The technology envelope I administer is ₹28 crore, comprising ₹22 crore operating expenditure and ₹6 crore capital expenditure. Those figures describe a regional company with a specific operating model. They do not make my experience equivalent to running technology for every kind of financial institution or a bank taking deposits from the public.

The cases on this site belong to that CIO appointment. They show why I separated receipt retransmission from payment creation, reduced data stored on field devices, held back translated prompts that still caused errors and refused a fleet purchase that ignored support life. I attend the board risk committee by invitation for technology matters but have never held a directorship. My next development step is to learn how that operating experience can inform oversight without becoming an instruction to management. I want directors to receive an honest account of what our systems establish, what they cannot yet establish and what a responsible decision will cost.

Open to Board appointments

Languages / English · Mizo · Hindi