Carry the operating account into the strategy discussion

Mandate

Make the capability, ownership and commercial obligations of retail adjacencies explicit

Outcomes

• Recommended a minority repair partnership with its control trade-off visible
• Reframed and declined a component acquisition whose output mostly needed outside buyers
• Narrowed corporate customisation and retained the residual-stock cost in its account
• Held a permanent buyback promise after a bounded collection pilot

Decisions in context

The CSO role places me between the attraction of a new opportunity and the work required to make it a business. Eleven strategy colleagues work through three leads within ₹3.8 crore function expense. I present through Naveen, while Elsa owns financial reporting and the operating and product functions retain their authority. I do not hold a separate trading P&L or approve capital simply because I recommend a route. The decisions since appointment have required me to acknowledge different forms of dependence: on service partners, on component suppliers and on corporate customers whose quantities may change. In April 2024 I also became Qarvelli's nominated director at Velqeri, adding a separate governance responsibility. That seat makes it particularly important to distinguish the retailer's preferences from the venture's own account. A further appointment would need to fit both roles and contribute beyond repeating the methods of one travel-goods company.

Reason for the move

Current role; considering one further board contribution alongside existing obligations

Concurrent appointment

Qarvelli employment continues alongside the separate company-nominated statutory directorship at Velqeri Service Partners from April 2024; the seat is not independent.

Mandate

Compare growth routes through the capabilities and obligations each would require

Outcomes

• Moved from divisional management into recommendations for a retail enterprise
• Developed explicit alternatives for proposed channel and capability choices
• Learned to preserve operating colleagues' objections in strategy papers

Decisions in context

I joined Qarvelli in February 2014 with six colleagues and two leads in the strategy function. The company had twelve shops and ₹76 crore revenue for the following March year-end; my ₹1.6 crore annual expense was a separate function account. After running a division, I had to learn how to influence a decision without borrowing the authority of the executives who would implement it. I wanted papers to describe why a different route might appeal to an operating colleague, because that objection often revealed work the preferred proposal had understated. This was a senior strategy appointment, without membership of the company board. Travel goods remained familiar, but the retailer's combination of stores, customers and suppliers differed from a product division's account. The role broadened my interest from what the company could sell next to which kind of business it was prepared to operate after the sale.

Reason for the move

Promoted to chief strategy officer

Mandate

Carry the commercial and operating consequences of the travel-products portfolio

Outcomes

• Managed a defined divisional account rather than treating company revenue as personal authority
• Connected customised orders with the stock and supplier obligations they created
• Developed an operating perspective on growth beyond the initial sales commitment

Decisions in context

Divisional management gave me eighty-four employees through five leaders and responsibility for a travel-products account. In FY ending March 2008, the division's ₹72 crore revenue and ₹6.3 crore contribution sat within Terqavi's ₹286 crore company revenue. Central overheads were outside the stated contribution, so it was not a claim about operating profit. I reported to the managing director and had to follow decisions after a sale had made them look successful. Customised stock could remain when a quantity changed, and a supplier's practical capability could differ from the control our commercial promise implied. Those experiences made me attentive to the business surrounding the product. I moved to Qarvelli because I wanted to apply that operating perspective to choices across a retailer, including when a seemingly close opportunity would require an enterprise with different capabilities and customers.

Reason for the move

Accepted a retail strategy role to examine wider business-model choices

Mandate

Connect product requirements with a realistic account of supplier capability and dependence

Outcomes

• Distinguished tooling, qualification and production capacity within sourcing proposals
• Learned how a commercial relationship could provide capability without full control
• Completed a part-time MBA in November 2004

Decisions in context

Sourcing management began in June 1999 and moved my work beyond the cost-analysis table. Twelve colleagues worked through three leads within ₹1.7 crore annual function expense. That delegation did not authorise every supplier commitment; the relevant commercial and technical approvals remained necessary. I learned to distinguish the right to use a tool, the acceptance of a component and access to production capacity, rather than let one completed step imply that the entire relationship was secure. A part-time MBA completed in November 2004 helped me connect these practical questions with business-model choices while I remained employed. I also learned that a supplier could make something we understood while running a commercial enterprise we did not fully know. The later divisional role appealed because it would let me carry those dependencies within a broader account of customers, people and financial consequences.

Reason for the move

Promoted to general manager of the travel-products division

Mandate

Explain the cost boundaries behind a product or commercial proposal

Outcomes

• Learned to distinguish a defined contribution from a complete company result
• Built a habit of checking which expenses sat outside a preferred unit figure
• Prepared for supplier-facing responsibility without claiming early approval authority

Decisions in context

I completed commerce in May 1992 and began cost analysis that July. The six-person group worked under a costing supervisor, and I had neither direct reports nor delegated spending. My task was to make the account understandable to colleagues considering products and orders. I learned that a figure could be arithmetically correct while being used to support a conclusion beyond its scope. A unit contribution did not include every expense the company had to carry, and a proposed volume was not a completed sale. Senior colleagues reviewed the analysis, so I do not describe those early assignments as decisions I personally approved. The questions nevertheless shaped my later work. Moving into sourcing let me see the relationships behind the cost assumptions and understand why the cheapest-looking number could correspond to a different capability or obligation rather than the same result at a lower price.

Reason for the move

Moved into sourcing management