Chief Executive Officer / India
Show what the convenient total leaves out
- Total premium, FY ending March 2026
- ₹1,360 crore
- ₹510 crore new business plus ₹850 crore renewals; separate from managed assets
- Life-assurance enterprise
- 580 people
- Nagpur headquarters and 24 branches; nine executive direct reports
- Administration to executive leadership
- 36 years
- July 1990 entry; CEO and employer executive director sinceJuly 2019
Decisions & consequences
01A successful partner had become the explanation for too much growth
Our April 2026 distribution review presented new-business premium as a single rising series. One partnership had brought ₹210 crore in single-premium business, while other routes contributed ₹300 crore. The total of ₹510 crore was accurate. It was also an incomplete account of how growth had been obtained. Commercial colleagues wanted a larger commitment to the successful partner, arguing that the relationship had demonstrated access and execution. I had initially supported a short board presentation centred on that result.
Mehul Qorzali separated the flows and asked what the forecast assumed about the partner's future priorities. Shabana Melzavi also distinguished the contractual obligations and economics of the business written. A single premium was not a recurring premium instalment, and neither the amount received nor its share of new business established the contribution to profit. The issue was not that this channel was inherently unattractive. It was that our proposed expansion depended on one relationship more heavily than the headline suggested.
I recommended retaining the partnership while limiting the next expansion commitment and funding ₹1.7 crore of analysis and development of additional routes. The board accepted a staged commercial plan rather than the larger immediate commitment. Distribution colleagues had to spend time on alternatives that would not match the largest partner's volume quickly. The partner relationship continued; we did not describe diversification as a reason to damage an arrangement that served customers and the company.
By the next review, two additional distribution routes were operating, but they had not removed the original concentration. We reported their actual flow separately from their contracted capacity. We also retained the ₹1.7 crore programme cost rather than treating a smaller expansion commitment as cash saved. My main lesson was about executive presentation. I had asked for a concise growth story and received one that made a reasonable commercial challenge harder to see. The better account preserved the strong result while showing its source, its limits and the work required before another source could matter.
The illustrated final value was remembered while the payment period disappeared
In 2024 a customer-study team reviewed how a life-policy proposition was explained. The approved illustration contained the relevant distinctions, but the spoken presentation tended to begin and end with a prominent future value. In a structured study of 120 adult participants, seventy-eight could recall that figure, while only forty-six correctly described the premium-payment period and the difference between contractual benefits and assumption-dependent values. Those counts measured this study, not the understanding of every policyholder or a regulatory compliance rate.
Distribution colleagues argued that a shorter opening made a complex product approachable. They were not proposing to remove the approved material. Shabana Melzavi nevertheless asked whether the explanation was allowing a conditional projection to become the customer's remembered promise. I supported a revision that began with the undertaking: what would be paid, for how long, which benefits followed the contract and which illustrated values depended on assumptions. Product, actuarial and legal colleagues retained responsibility for the approved content.
The ₹44 lakh programme revised the conversation sequence, supporting examples and training. It added a structured explanation-back step before the sales discussion proceeded. The purpose was not to coach a person into repeating a preferred answer. Staff had to identify what remained unclear and give space for a decision not to proceed. That could make an interaction longer and reduce the attraction of a polished opening centred on one future number.
In a later sixty-person study, forty-nine accurately described the main distinctions and eleven still required further explanation. The participants and format differed from the first study, so we did not calculate a causal improvement rate by comparing the two percentages. The outcome justified further use and observation, not a claim that misunderstanding had been eliminated. I learned to ask what a person would say the next day about the commitment, rather than assume that a signed illustration established the whole quality of the conversation. The commercial result had to remain compatible with an informed decision, including a decision to leave.
Restoring an existing policy needed a route outside the new-sales campaign
A 2025 campaign proposed contacting customers whose policies had lapsed and introducing a current product. Some customers might reasonably want a new-policy discussion. Others first needed to understand whether and how their existing contract could be revived. The proposed campaign script moved too quickly from the fact of lapse to the new proposition, leaving servicing colleagues to explain the older contract only when the customer asked a sufficiently precise question.
I asked operations and distribution to separate the two purposes. Revival would be considered under the existing policy's terms and the insurer's applicable assessment; no caller could promise automatic restoration. A new proposal would remain a separate decision with its own explanation and consent. The sales team was concerned that an additional service route would complicate a campaign and make activity harder to compare. I accepted that complication because a single conversion category would conceal materially different customer decisions.
We approved ₹63 lakh for service training, routing and case handling. In a 240-case review, ninety-two policies were revived after the required consideration, fifty-eight customers requested a separate discussion about a new policy, and ninety remained undecided during the observation period. The second group was not counted as issued new business. The third was not described as a service failure merely because it had not reached a commercial conclusion. Operations owned the existing-policy account; distribution owned the separate proposition where requested.
The review did not establish how many customers would have revived without this route, nor did it prove that every new-policy discussion was preferable or unsuitable. Its value was a clearer service and a report that preserved the distinction between an existing contract, an enquiry and a completed decision. We retained the cost and the unfinished cases in the board account. For me, the difficult part was resisting a convenient aggregate that would have made the campaign look easier to manage. An executive can ask for concise reporting without asking the organisation to erase the customer's actual choice.
A platform retirement could not retire the policies it still carried
In 2025 technology colleagues proposed retiring a legacy administration platform. New products had moved elsewhere, and continued operation cost money while retaining specialist support needs. The proposal was sensible in direction. Its initial completion measure, however, focused on transferring records and closing the old application. Operations identified eighteen older policy variants whose service behaviour had to be understood separately, including different payment schedules and benefit-event treatments.
Shabana Melzavi and the operations team asked for demonstrations of the relevant policy journeys, not only a reconciliation of transferred totals. Technology colleagues warned that keeping two platforms running would add cost and coordination risk. I agreed with both concerns. I recommended postponing retirement for a bounded period while the teams mapped the eighteen variants and tested the replacement's ability to support them. The board approved ₹2.8 crore of additional legacy operation; that amount was a cost of the chosen route, not a saving attributed to caution.
The review covered ninety representative service scenarios. Seventy-three were demonstrated on the replacement arrangement and seventeen required further work at the first decision point. We did not convert 73 out of 90 into a percentage of policyholders protected: scenarios differed in frequency and consequence, and one unresolved treatment could matter greatly to the people affected. Operations, technology, legal and actuarial colleagues retained their separate sign-offs and documented what still needed explanation.
The old platform remained in bounded operation while the outstanding treatments were resolved. Retirement was therefore not claimed as complete in this account. The result was an honest decision to carry additional cost instead of declaring a technical milestone equivalent to continuity of the contract. I also required a renewed review date so caution did not become an indefinite excuse for an ageing system. The lesson was that a closed product can remain an active operating responsibility. A chief executive must hold the cost of delay alongside the cost of an inadequately supported transition, without pretending either side is free.