My contribution to a board
Most boards hear about their customers through numbers that have already been averaged: revenue by region, a satisfaction score, a complaints count. I would bring the habit of asking what lies beneath the average, and enough field experience to know where to look. I have spent twenty-eight years close to customers at the far end of long distribution chains: factory owners whose supply sagged every evening, farmers waiting months for a subsidy, prepaid households who abandoned a service that surprised them, borrowers at shop counters and families waiting for a net meter. I know how a contracted field network behaves when it is paid on volume, and how to read service data for the problem a sales report hides.
I would also bring a working grasp of risks that consumer-facing boards often see late: battery and electrical safety in people's homes, the quality of contracted partners' work, journeys that pass through utilities or lenders, and the protection of data collected through connected devices. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 has made the last a board matter, and I have taken consent decisions about household data in practice.
I am not an accountant and would not present myself as an Audit Committee's financial expert, though I read accounts competently. My natural place is the Risk Management Committee, which the SEBI Listing Regulations require of the larger listed companies and which many others choose to form, and the Stakeholders Relationship Committee, where a discipline of following every grievance to its cause is as useful for security holders as it is for customers. I have also disagreed with a promoter in writing, with evidence, and kept the working relationship intact.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to chair | A technology or customer committee, where a board has constituted one, after a year as a member |
|---|
| Ready to join | Risk Management Committee · Stakeholders Relationship Committee · Corporate Social Responsibility Committee |
|---|
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 25 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Consumer durables and home appliances outside power products · Lenders to small borrowers, small businesses and first-time home buyers in smaller towns · Agricultural equipment and rural services · Household water and sanitation products
- Company type
- NSE or BSE-listed small or mid-cap company, or a company preparing to list, that sells to households or small businesses through a long distribution chain and has no business relationship with Dhruvanta
- Company stage
- Growing beyond its home region or changing its business model, at a point where the board needs a closer view of the customer and the field network
The seat I am pursuing
I am pursuing one independent directorship at a listed company, or one preparing to list, with revenue of perhaps ₹1,000 crore to ₹6,000 crore, that sells to households or small businesses in smaller towns: a consumer-durables or appliance maker outside power products, a lender to small borrowers that has no relationship with Dhruvanta, an agricultural-equipment company or a household water business. Those companies share the problems I know best: long distribution chains, contracted field networks, customers who need financing, and public utilities or regulators whose processes shape what the customer experiences.
I want to join the Risk Management Committee and the Stakeholders Relationship Committee, and I would be ready to chair a technology or customer committee after a year if the board has one. I will take only one independent seat while I remain an executive. The SEBI Listing Regulations would permit more, but one seat done properly is worth more to both companies than two done partly.
Judgement in practice
01Replacing 3,100 battery packs instead of patching them
In March 2025 our service team found that a batch of 3,100 lithium iron phosphate home battery packs had a battery-management firmware fault that let cells drift out of balance. About 0.4 per cent of the packs had shown elevated temperatures; none had caught fire. Engineering proposed a remote firmware update. I pointed out that about 40 per cent of the packs were not connected to our app and could not receive one, and that the unconnected customers were mostly in the smallest towns, furthest from our service points. I recommended replacing every pack in the batch, at a cost of ₹19 crore, and contacting each customer directly. The Risk Management Committee supported it and asked for a report each quarter until the last pack was replaced, five months later. A remedy that reaches only the customers who are easy to reach is not yet a remedy, and I would test any board paper on that point.
02Declining to share household data with a lending partner
In 2024 one of our lending partners asked for operating data from our connected inverters, such as outage patterns and evening consumption, to help it score applicants for rooftop loans. The commercial case was real: better scoring might have widened approvals in smaller towns. I recommended against sharing by default, because our customers had agreed to share data with us to improve their product, not to be assessed for credit. With the board's agreement we built a separate consent screen, written in plain Hindi, Tamil and English, which a customer could decline without losing any feature. About 38 per cent of applicants chose to share. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 points the same way, but the decision rested first on what our customers had been told. As a director I would ask, of any new use of customer data, what the customer was told when it was collected.
03Advising against buying installation capacity
In 2023 the board considered acquiring a Lucknow rooftop installation company with about 600 employees for roughly ₹180 crore, to add capacity quickly. Before the meeting I asked to inspect a sample of its work. Our engineers visited 200 of its installations and found earthing faults at 27 per cent of them and roof penetrations needing resealing at about a fifth. I presented those findings alongside the strategy team's case for the purchase and recommended building our own certification instead. The board declined the acquisition. Our own route was slower and cost part of a year's growth. On another board I would ask the same of any acquisition: inspect the work it produces, not only the accounts that describe it.
My first year on a board
My first three months would go on learning how the company reaches its customers. I would read three years of board and committee minutes, the risk register and the raw complaints data, and ask to see the company's own service or quality measures as management sees them rather than as the board summary presents them. I would travel with a field team in at least two towns far from head office, because the distance between a head office's picture of the customer and a technician's is usually the first risk I look for. I would also meet the heads of risk, internal audit and customer service without asking for a presentation.
For the rest of the year I would serve as a committee member and would not seek a chair, learning which risks recur and how management reports them. After twelve months I would ask the chair for frank feedback and use the board's evaluation to judge whether my questions had helped or merely added to the agenda.
Conflicts and their management
Dhruvanta comes first, and its conflicts are easy to name. I would not join the board of any maker or seller of inverters, batteries, solar modules, rooftop systems, electric-vehicle chargers or competing electrical equipment, any of our suppliers, distributors or installer partners, or any lender that finances Dhruvanta customers, including the two partners we use today. I would also decline a company with a material relationship with the Sethia family's other businesses. Before accepting a seat I would disclose my Dhruvanta shareholding, my subsidiary directorship and anything else the company's board might consider relevant, and seek my own board's consent.
If a conflict arose after appointment, I would declare it at the next meeting, leave the discussion and the decision, and offer to resign if it seemed likely to recur. Time is the other conflict: Dhruvanta's busiest months come before the summer peak and the monsoon, so I would fix the board calendar a year ahead and protect twenty-five days, preparation included.
My independence statement
I am a full-time executive of Dhruvanta Power Systems and own a small number of its shares through an employee stock option scheme. Any company considering me should know that I would only accept a seat where neither I nor Dhruvanta, its promoter family or its lending partners has a business, financial or family connection of any substance with that company, and I would set out every relevant fact in writing beforehand. Whether those facts satisfy section 149(6) of the Companies Act is a judgement for that company's board, not one I would make about myself.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Dhruvanta Power Systems Limited
Board of directors: product strategy, the solar business plan and major product investments
April 2021–present
Presents the product strategy twice a year and each major product investment when it arises; not a director of the company and holds no vote.
Reported to a committee
Dhruvanta Power Systems Limited
Risk Management Committee: product safety, battery risk, installation quality and protection of customer data
April 2022–present
Reports every quarter on first-year service tickets, safety incidents and the handling of app data; not a committee member.
Served as a director
Dhruvanta Solar Services Private Limited
Board of the wholly owned installation and service subsidiary
June 2023–present
Director in an executive capacity, approving installer partner contracts, service standards, the annual plan and the subsidiary's accounts.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Prayavan Consumer Finance Limited
Credit Committee: product and journey changes affecting point-of-sale lending
2018–2021
Presented product changes for the committee's approval; held no credit authority and was not a member.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Registered
I registered with the IICA Independent Directors' Databank in March 2026 and have not yet taken its online proficiency self-assessment test. I have not served as a director or key managerial person of a listed company, so I do not expect any exemption to apply to me, and I plan to sit the test well within the period the rules allow after registration. Inclusion in the databank is expected of anyone appointed as an independent director; it does not make me independent of any particular company, and it does not entitle me to a seat.
- IICA databank registration in March 2026, with the proficiency self-assessment test planned
- Board and Risk Management Committee presentations at Dhruvanta since 2021
- Directorship of a wholly owned subsidiary since June 2023, including approval of its accounts and partner contracts
- A reading programme with Dhruvanta's company secretary on Schedule IV of the Companies Act, the committee requirements of the SEBI Listing Regulations and related-party approvals