Learning which promise the people schedule had already made

The first question was why our technical reviewers appeared to be underused. The report I had endorsed showed that only 1,180 of 1,600 recorded hours across twenty-four reviewers were chargeable. The other 420 hours were assurance work. A 73.75% utilisation figure described the selected category correctly, but the performance discussion treated it as though it described the whole contribution. I had helped create a measure that made necessary professional work look like an absence. The correction required more than adding a footnote to an otherwise unchanged appraisal.

I grew up in Kochi and studied psychology at the fictional Tazqavi College of Social Studies, completing my bachelor's degree in June 1995 and a master's in HR management in June 1997. The next month I joined Qelmuri Staffing Services as a recruitment coordinator. The firm had forty employees and ₹5 crore revenue for FY ending March 1998. I belonged to a seven-person delivery group without direct reports or spending authority. I learned to distinguish a candidate's stated experience from the evidence we were entitled to request and from the employment commitment a client had actually approved.

In June 2003 I became resource manager. Qelmuri employed ninety-five people and recorded ₹17 crore revenue for FY ending March 2004. Eight colleagues worked through two supervisors, with ₹63 lakh annual function expense. Client contracts and larger staffing commitments had separate approval. This period taught me that a resource plan contains people making decisions outside the firm's spreadsheet. A start date can influence a resignation, relocation or family arrangement. Moving the date in a planning meeting does not reverse those decisions, and a vacancy should not be treated as interchangeable with an accepted offer.

I moved to Velqemi Power Studies in September 2009 as a people partner. The consultancy had 120 employees, three offices and ₹31 crore fee revenue for FY ending March 2010. I led nine colleagues through two leads with ₹1.2 crore annual operating expense. Technical leaders determined engineering competence and the work appropriate to each appointment. My task was to help those judgements enter hiring, deployment and employment discussions without pretending that an HR process made me an engineering authority. I also saw how easily a commercial proposal could turn a colleague's biography into a staffing promise they had never agreed to fulfil.

The head-of-people appointment followed in July 2016. Velqemi had grown to 270 employees, five offices and ₹78 crore fee revenue for FY ending March 2017. Thirteen HR colleagues worked through three leads within ₹2.1 crore annual operating expense. I took responsibility for the relationship between hiring, appraisal, deployment and the firm's commitments to employees. The role brought me closer to the consequences of simple measures. Chargeable time mattered to the business, but it could not explain every activity that made a professional study defensible. I did not recognise that limitation clearly enough when supporting the later utilisation design.

I became CHRO in January 2022. Seventeen HR colleagues now work through three leads within ₹2.9 crore FY2026–27 operating expense and a separate ₹1.1 crore approved change programme. Velqemi employs 430 people across seven offices and recorded ₹137 crore FY26 fee revenue. The senior-professional vehicle owns 46%, a family investor 34% and an employee vehicle 20%; I have no holding through any of them. I report to CEO Anita Zarqani. Technical director Dev Dovzethi and qualified engineering owners retain responsibility for methods, review and acceptance. We sell studies and advice, not electricity generated by assets we own.

The recruitment redesign cost ₹27 lakh. Forty-six candidates entered the process, thirty-eight completed a common fictional exercise and eight withdrew. Twenty of the completed submissions met the stated criteria and eighteen did not. We did not count these results as hires or assume that a withdrawn candidate lacked competence. The assurance review cost ₹32 lakh and changed the appraisal account. In a separate examination of 120 review packets, thirty-four required changes and eighty-six cleared the defined review; that distribution did not establish a number of failures prevented or a general quality rate for the business.

The bid-biography review was less comfortable commercially. Fifty-two people had been named in a proposed staffing account. Thirty-one confirmed the defined participation, twelve declined and nine remained unresolved. We spent ₹18 lakh repairing the process and narrowed a ₹4.6 crore proposal to the supported team. That figure was a proposal value, not revenue secured. The accepted-offer case required a ₹24 lakh support envelope after a proposed deferral affected ten of twenty-eight incoming colleagues. Eighteen starts continued; eight of the ten accepted supported arrangements and two reached different agreed resolutions. I kept a separate ₹1.2 crore vacancy proposal outside any claim of realised savings.

I registered with the IICA independent directors databank in August 2025 and passed the fictional proficiency assessment in June 2026. Those milestones do not establish eligibility or independence for a particular appointment. I hold no statutory directorship and have provisionally allowed twenty-four days for one external role, subject to employer consent, conflicts and actual workload. I work in Malayalam, English and Hindi. My contribution would be to examine whether a company's employment practices support the judgement its business depends on, while respecting the distinction between board oversight and the executive responsibilities I currently carry.

Open to Board appointments

Languages / Malayalam · English · Hindi