Miriam LalsoraniChief Information Officer · Essays & perspective
Branches supported
88
Four northeastern Indian states; March 2026
Technology colleagues
42
Led through four functional heads
Technology envelope
₹28 Cr
₹22 crore operating plus ₹6 crore capital expenditure

I build technology for a regional lender by testing whether people can use it responsibly beyond the conditions of a head-office demonstration.

I am CIO of Zeravien Rural Finance in Guwahati. Our 88 branches serve low-income households across Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura. I lead 42 technology colleagues through four functional heads, working with separately accountable credit, operations, finance and compliance teams. The company's March 2026 loan portfolio of ₹1,380 crore describes the business we support, not my lending authority. My approved technology envelope is ₹28 crore, split between operating and capital expenditure.

My first job was supporting software used in district public-service offices. I learnt how power interruptions, shared equipment and unfamiliar wording can change a system's usefulness. I moved from support to implementation, then joined Zeravien in 2010 to manage applications. Technology operations and the CIO appointment followed. The question I carry through that career is whether the person furthest from the project team can distinguish a completed action from one still waiting for confirmation.

The work here includes a payment-receipt upload problem, smaller borrower-data downloads, field testing of translated prompts and a staged handset replacement. These are decisions about the conditions in which people actually work. They involve unresolved records, inconvenience and expenditure as well as improvements. I want a reader to see why we made each choice and which judgement remained with a colleague outside technology.

A retry is not another payment

A review of 18,420 field receipt records found 1,146 repeated transmissions following connection interruptions. We retained the original receipt identity and stopped retries from becoming new posting requests. Thirty-seven records still needed reconciliation at the review date; I did not describe them as proven duplicate collections or resolved customer accounts.

Less borrower data travels with the officer

After six field devices were reported lost, we replaced a download of up to 720 borrower records with a daily assigned route containing at most 42. We removed identity-document images from that local route package. The change reduced exposure but did not make an offline remote-wipe command effective before the device reconnected.

A translation must survive use

Forty-four officers tried 23 revised prompts across 128 simulated tasks. Incorrect next actions fell from seventeen in the first round to four in the second. We released nineteen prompts and held four for further work, preserving the approved lending terms while changing how staff navigated the application.

Current focus

I am developing a field-technology review in which operations, language reviewers and security colleagues examine the same task from different perspectives. I also want clearer evidence of handset support life before procurement treats an available device as a usable addition to the fleet.

Conversations I welcome

I can consider a first board role in a regional service business that depends on staff working beyond reliable office connectivity. I have provisionally reserved eighteen days annually, subject to employer consent, conflicts and the actual committee workload. I would contribute technology judgement without presenting myself as a lending or legal specialist.

Beyond the page

The record behind the perspective.

Formation

  • Bachelor of Science in Computer ScienceEhnawel Science College · 1998
Miriam made us test what an officer would do after a connection failed, not just whether the application could reconnect. Working with her since 2017, I have found that she takes the practical inconvenience seriously without using it to excuse an unclear customer record.
Anup VerthaniCOO, Zeravien Rural Finance; operating colleague since 2017
The full record ↗

Contact

I can consider a first board role in a regional service business that depends on staff working beyond reliable office connectivity. I have provisionally reserved eighteen days annually, subject to employer consent, conflicts and the actual committee workload. I would contribute technology judgement without presenting myself as a lending or legal specialist.

  • Board appointments
Write to Miriam Contact page