Accounting became a view of resources and obligations

Mandate

Make rights, continuing costs and cash timing clear in enterprise financial choices

Outcomes

• Corrected a borrowing pack that combined owned and consigned inventory
• Rebuilt acquisition earnings around the buyer's continuing management and occupancy costs
• Connected treasury maturities and shareholder distributions with the company's liquidity plan

Decisions in context

The CFO role widened the audience for my work from finance and operating colleagues to the directors and employee shareholders who must understand the company's commitments. Forty-three colleagues work through five managers within ₹6.9 crore annual function expense. I report to Neel and present to the board without a statutory seat. The stock-ownership omission showed where my review needed to go beyond arithmetic. The acquisition required a view of the work that would continue after a seller left. Treasury and distribution decisions then required us to accept the cost of keeping cash available. My 0.6% holding also meant the distribution recommendation had a personal consequence to disclose. I want the finance account to help the authorised decision-makers choose deliberately, while retaining the distinctions that a concise headline can otherwise erase.

Reason for the move

Current role; preparing for one first external non-executive appointment

Mandate

Connect financial control with recommendations before operating commitments were approved

Outcomes

• Brought continuing operating costs into transaction preparation
• Connected treasury plans with the timing of retail commitments
• Developed clearer explanations for manager and employee shareholders

Decisions in context

This appointment added planning and transaction support to the control experience I had built. Thirty-two colleagues and four managers worked within ₹4.3 crore annual function expense. I reported to the CFO, and the head-of-finance title did not carry a statutory directorship. The twenty-seven-shop business generated proposals that looked different depending on which function explained them. A seller described earnings, a shop manager described the range and treasury described the timing of money. I learned to ask what each account assumed about the others before combining them into a recommendation. Employee ownership made explanation particularly important: colleagues could understand the trading business well while needing a clearer account of the financial consequences. The move prepared me for the CFO role by making communication of the choice part of the finance responsibility, rather than an exercise performed after the analysis was considered finished.

Reason for the move

Promoted to chief financial officer

Mandate

Build a reliable account of retail transactions and the arrangements behind stock

Outcomes

• Connected inventory records with differing supplier arrangements
• Brought treasury timing experience into retail control discussions
• Completed a part-time treasury diploma during the first year

Decisions in context

Retail control introduced stock arrangements that needed more explanation than a combined quantity and value schedule. Twenty-one finance colleagues worked through three managers within ₹2.4 crore annual function expense. Some books were purchased outright while others arrived under supplier arrangements that created different rights and obligations. I worked with buying colleagues to understand those differences and with the appropriate advisers when the agreement required interpretation. A part-time treasury-management diploma finished in November 2008, after my July move, with the overlap known to my employer. The role linked my earlier experience of payment timing with a wider set of retail transactions. It also taught me how much meaning can be lost when an account is shortened for another reader. Later responsibility would test whether I had consistently preserved that meaning in the recommendations I reviewed.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head of finance with a wider planning remit

Mandate

Match expected payment dates with accessible resources under authorised arrangements

Outcomes

• Made the dates behind seasonal liquidity needs easier to inspect
• Separated cash scheduling from authority to borrow or invest
• Developed treasury knowledge through part-time study

Decisions in context

The treasury-controller role made cash timing a daily practical responsibility. Twelve colleagues and two supervisors supported a ₹9 crore seasonal liquidity schedule, while authorised management retained borrowing decisions. A period could appear adequately funded in total and still contain a difficult date when expected receipts had not arrived or money was committed elsewhere. I learned to examine the assumptions behind that apparent comfort and to explain which changes required a new decision. The work also taught me to keep policy, counterparty terms and access conditions distinct from a simple comparison of quoted income. I began part-time treasury study while continuing in the role. Moving to Lunqeri gave me the opportunity to bring that timing discipline into a wider retail control remit, where inventory arrangements and customer demand would add different kinds of uncertainty to the financial account.

Reason for the move

Moved into retail financial control at Lunqeri

Mandate

Prepare reliable records while understanding the transaction each entry described

Outcomes

• Learned to trace payment and supplier records to their commercial purpose
• Distinguished settled transactions from obligations still awaiting explanation
• Built the practical accounting base for a move into treasury control

Decisions in context

I joined in July after completing my accounting-focused commerce degree in June 1994. I worked with eight accounting colleagues and had neither direct reports nor authority to spend or borrow. The early work concerned records that could look routine until someone asked what they represented. A payment might settle an earlier delivery, relate to goods still expected or remain connected to a difference that needed resolution. I learned to seek the explanation rather than treat every unsettled entry as something to clear as quickly as possible. More experienced colleagues helped me distinguish a recording task from a commercial or treasury decision. The role gave me respect for the work needed to produce a dependable account and an interest in the timing behind it. That interest eventually led to treasury control, where the meaning of a transaction had to be connected to the day the company could act on it.

Reason for the move

Promoted to treasury controller