The growth chart needed its missing distinction

The chart showed a pleasing rise in new-business premium. I had asked for it because the board wanted a concise account of our distribution expansion. Mehul then separated the ₹210 crore received through one single-premium partnership from the ₹300 crore generated through other routes. The total remained ₹510 crore, but its meaning changed. A large first payment was not a stream of future renewal premiums, and a successful partner could become a dependency. My request for a simpler chart had removed a distinction the board needed to examine.

I grew up in Guwahati and completed a commerce degree at the fictional Nerqethi Commerce College in May 1990. That July I joined Zaqravi Employee Services as an accounts assistant. It was an employer-benefit administration business, not an insurer. The company had seventy employees and ₹3.2 crore fee revenue for FY ending March 1991. I worked in a five-person accounts group without spending or staff authority. Reconciling employer contributions taught me that a payment record and a person's entitlement were connected, but they were not interchangeable descriptions of the same thing.

In April 1996 I became a benefit-plan administration analyst. Zaqravi then employed 120 people and reported ₹8.6 crore fee revenue for the following March year-end. I led four analysts within ₹18 lakh annual function expense. Our employer clients and their appointed professionals retained decisions about their schemes; we administered records and supplied reconciliations. The role taught me to be precise about what an administrator knew, what a document established and which decision belonged elsewhere. That discipline remained useful when I later entered insurance.

I joined Dovruni Life Assurance as business-planning manager in June 2001, after private-sector life insurance had opened in India. The fictional company had 200 employees and ₹120 crore total premium for FY ending March 2002. My seven-person planning group worked within ₹48 lakh annual expense, reporting to the finance chief. I was not an actuary or underwriter. I learned to distinguish premium volume, the timing of cash, distribution expense and the continuing obligation to a policyholder. A forecast could not become more useful by treating all those measures as equivalent.

The distribution-partnership appointment followed in September 2008. I led thirty-one colleagues through four managers within ₹4.8 crore annual function expense. Dovruni had 650 employees and ₹620 crore total premium for FY ending March 2009. Partnership negotiations brought the attraction of quick access to customers alongside dependence on another organisation's sales priorities. I wanted planning colleagues to understand the practical channel choices, and commercial colleagues to understand why a large premium figure did not settle every question about value or continuity.

Vaqruni recruited me as chief operating officer in February 2013. It had 310 employees, fourteen branches and ₹460 crore total premium for FY ending March 2014. My 174-person operations organisation worked through six heads within ₹38 crore annual expense. The job brought older policies, servicing work and technology decisions into the same room as distribution ambitions. It also exposed the cost of assuming that a product's commercial life ended when new sales stopped. Operations had to preserve the contract's meaning through changes of systems and staff.

I became chief executive and an executive director in July 2019. The business now has 580 employees and 24 branches, with ₹1,360 crore total premium for FY ending March 2026 and ₹4,860 crore assets under management. The latter is not a discretionary spending reserve. Nine executives report to me; the board has approved ₹146 crore FY 2026–27 operating expense. Our three corporate investors hold 51%, 29% and 20%, and I have no personal holding. Mehul and Shabana maintain their respective finance and actuarial responsibilities. Executive accountability does not make my judgement a substitute for theirs.

The decisions I discuss include ₹1.7 crore of distribution analysis and diversification work,₹44 lakh to improve benefit-illustration conversations,₹63 lakh for a distinct revival-servicing route and ₹2.8 crore of additional legacy-platform operation. These are costs incurred or approved for defined work, not a claim of equivalent savings. Some outcomes remain unfinished: undecided customers remain undecided, and additional distribution routes do not immediately remove dependence on the largest partner. I want the website to retain that incompleteness because it describes the actual leadership task.

My only statutory seat is the executive directorship at Vaqruni, held sinceJuly 2019. I have not yet registered with the IICA independent directors databank and assert neither an assessment result nor an exemption. Eighteen days a year is a provisional allowance for one external role, requiring employer and board consent, relationship review and a credible calendar. I would bring experience of long-duration undertakings and the discipline of separating volume from obligation. I would also bring the memory of the chart I had made too simple.

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