Chief Executive Officer India

The commitments I chose and the costs I accepted

Current retail estate: 29 shops; Alongside an online business; fictional company scale
Company revenue: ₹486 crore; FY ending March 2026; distinct from programme and store measures
Current executive directorship: 1; Qeraveli, concurrent with CEO duties since March 2019

Decisions & consequences

Giving eight trading shops priority over twelve proposed openings

In the FY2024 capital discussion we had a proposal to open twelve shops for ₹54 crore. It offered a visible expansion of our footprint and gave the commercial team a strong growth story. I had initially supported that direction. Aman asked why we were committing to more locations before dealing with eight existing shops whose layouts, displays and back-room arrangements were making their ranges harder to sell. Refurbishing those eight would require ₹18.6 crore and management time that the opening programme also needed.

The expansion advocates had a serious case. Competitors could take attractive properties, new shops would reach customers outside our existing trading areas, and refurbishment would not provide the same geographic growth. I asked the operating team to present the eight-shop programme as a separate investment proposition, including disruption during work, rather than describe it as the inexpensive version of expansion. We could not claim the difference between ₹54 crore and ₹18.6 crore as a saving: the programmes delivered different things and left different opportunities unrealised.

I recommended the refurbishment programme, and the board approved it. We sequenced the work so the executive team could attend to trading disruption as well as the physical changes. Buying, store operations and property colleagues shared the implementation review. I took responsibility for the decision to postpone the larger opening proposal, including the possibility that some sites would no longer be available when we returned to them. The approved programme did not authorise spending the unused difference elsewhere.

For the same eight shops, sales moved from ₹74.2 crore in FY2023 to ₹81.6 crore in FY2024. Direct store contribution moved from ₹8.1 crore to ₹9.4 crore, excluding central costs and financing. That was useful trading evidence, but it did not isolate refurbishment from assortment, pricing, local demand or other changes. Nor was the contribution movement a return calculation on the capital. The decision taught me to bring a credible existing-estate proposal into the discussion before a new-opening map becomes the default definition of ambition.

Narrowing the gift-set range before the seasonal commitment hardened

The 2025 corporate gifting proposal contained fifty-two configurations and a plan for 120,000 gift sets. Buyers liked being able to vary the linen combination and presentation. Commercial colleagues believed the breadth would help us win more accounts, especially where a buyer wanted something that looked distinct from another company's order. Finance estimated peak cash need at ₹15 crore under the proposed purchasing and collection assumptions. Several configurations required commitments before customer decisions were firm.

I first treated the assortment breadth as a commercial advantage that operations should accommodate. The buying team then showed how packaging variants and component choices divided purchases into smaller commitments that still had to be financed. A later order could not always absorb an earlier configuration without additional work. Aman argued for a smaller programme; sales argued that narrowing too far would surrender business to more flexible competitors. Both were describing a real consequence, and I could not settle it by asking each function to optimise its own part.

We spent ₹38 lakh on planning, configuration work and revised commercial material, included in the programme's eventual contribution account. I approved a thirty-one-configuration offer. The revised forecast peak cash need was ₹9.8 crore. The ₹5.2 crore difference from the earlier forecast was a change in planned exposure, not cash recovered or an expense saving. Commercial colleagues retained room to discuss larger bespoke requests through separate approval rather than silently expanding the standard programme again.

We sold 98,000 gift sets, below the original 120,000-unit plan, recording ₹19.6 crore sales and ₹2.6 crore contribution after dedicated programme expenses but before central costs and tax. Those actual results were reported separately from the cash forecast. Some prospective buyers declined the narrower choices, and we did not claim to know what the broader programme would have earned. I regard the decision as an accepted limit on the opportunity, not proof that smaller ranges always perform better. Next time I would ask for the financing account before allowing an attractive configuration list to become a promise to the market.

Returning a family-connected property offer for a different commitment

In 2024 the founder family's property interests proposed three sites under nine-year commitments at an aggregate ₹4.6 crore annual rent. The locations were commercially plausible, and the relationship made negotiations easier to begin. I wanted the stores and had an executive reward measure linked partly to shop growth. That made it particularly important to disclose my own incentive alongside the landlord connection rather than present myself as a detached evaluator of the offer.

Leela required a properly supported proposal for the board. We allocated ₹44 lakh to independent valuation and legal review. The work examined the sites, rent, duration, break provisions and alternatives; the appropriate advisers and board process determined the applicable approvals. This account does not assert that a particular approval rule applied solely because the landlord was connected. The commercial question was whether the properties and the length of commitment suited our plans, with the relationship made explicit.

I returned with a three-year counterproposal for the three sites at ₹4.9 crore aggregate annual rent, with break terms reviewed by counsel. Paying more each year in return for a shorter commitment was not a cost-reduction claim. The founder side preferred the longer arrangement because it provided greater income certainty. I acknowledged that interest while explaining why our retail company should not take the full duration merely to preserve a lower opening figure. The board could still have rejected the revised proposal or required other alternatives.

Ultimately two sites were accepted at a combined ₹3.1 crore annual rent and one was rejected. The final two-site figure cannot be compared directly with either three-site proposal as though the same estate had become cheaper. The ₹44 lakh review cost remained a real expense, and the shorter commitments left future renewal uncertainty. I learned that a related relationship and my own growth incentive needed to enter the discussion before enthusiasm for a location made them awkward to raise. A useful site should survive a complete decision process, not borrow its legitimacy from the familiarity of the people offering it.

Recognising the supplier cash burden inside our contribution story

A 2025 review of twenty-four supplier invoices found eleven settled by the agreed contractual dates and thirteen late. It was a deliberately small diagnostic sample, not a representative estimate of every supplier relationship. I had recently emphasised the contribution from our linen ranges in an executive review. Aman challenged that emphasis by asking whose cash was supporting the trading result when an invoice had passed its agreed date. The challenge was justified, particularly given my own years on the supplier side.

Buying colleagues pointed to unresolved quantities, packaging discrepancies and credit notes. Those matters needed resolution, but raising them near a payment date left little time to agree the account. In the reviewed cases, dispute discussion had typically begun a median eight days before the agreed date. The treasury team also wanted to preserve liquidity for seasonal purchases. I had to recognise the cost of improving settlement instead of telling both functions to fix the issue within unchanged cash assumptions.

We authorised ₹86 lakh in annual financing expense to support earlier agreed settlement and brought unresolved invoice matters into the executive cash discussion. In the later review, the median start of dispute discussion was nineteen days before the contractual date. Buying retained responsibility for the commercial facts, finance for the account and settlement, and legal advisers for applicable obligations and supplier classifications. The initiative did not replace any mandatory payment requirements or imply that a contractual date could override them.

A later twenty-four-invoice sample contained twenty on-time settlements and four late ones. We reported the remaining cases individually and continued broader review. Different small samples do not prove a company-wide improvement rate or establish legal compliance. The financing allocation was an accepted annual cost, not a calculated return from improved supplier goodwill. My lesson was to put settlement performance beside the trading account before congratulating the organisation on contribution. A profitable-looking range can still depend on an uncomfortable transfer of the funding burden to the people who made it possible.

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