The supplier account stayed with me

The invoice review bothered me more than the investment debate. I had been explaining why our home-linen business could afford its next programme. Then Aman put twenty-four supplier invoices in front of me: eleven had been settled by their agreed dates and thirteen had not. I knew that cash timing mattered, but I had allowed the conversation to stay with stock and contribution while part of the funding burden sat with suppliers. My own early career should have made that omission harder to excuse.

I grew up in Cuttack and completed a commerce degree at the fictional Velqora Commerce College in May 1992. The following month I joined Norzeli Textiles as a merchandising analyst. It was a family-operated textile supplier with 260 employees and ₹39 crore revenue in the year ending March 1993. I worked in a seven-person team without direct reports or spending authority. Much of the job concerned the difference between a promising sample and the order a buyer was prepared to place. Colours, quantities and delivery dates became a commercial undertaking only when somebody accepted responsibility for them together.

In June 2000 I became commercial accounts manager. The company had 430 employees and ₹88 crore revenue for the year ending March 2001. I led nineteen colleagues through three managers, overseeing an ₹18 crore annual account book without controlling the company's treasury. Buyers could describe a revised assortment as a small change while its implications travelled through production, packing and collection. I learned to separate the sale from the money available to finance it. A part-time MBA at Dhezvani Management School, completed in November 2005, helped me relate those account-level experiences to an enterprise decision.

I moved to Qeraveli in June 2007 as head of buying. The retailer had eleven shops, 510 employees and ₹122 crore revenue for the financial year ending March 2008. Thirty-one colleagues and four managers worked within a ₹46 crore annual merchandise-purchase envelope. Moving to the buying side did not remove the tensions I had known as a supplier. It gave me more influence over them. I had to choose a range customers could understand without making every attractive variation a standing inventory commitment. That was also when I learned how a shop's appearance could conceal slow-moving goods in less visible corners of the account.

The chief operating officer role followed in June 2013. Qeraveli then had nineteen shops and 920 employees, with ₹268 crore revenue for the year ending March 2014. Six operating leaders reported to me, and my remit included ₹37 crore annual controllable operating expense. Property commitments and major capital decisions remained with the authorised executive and board process. I could no longer treat buying, shop operations and fulfilment as separate explanations. A choice that pleased one function might leave another carrying the space, labour or cash it needed.

I became CEO and an executive director in March 2019. The company now has twenty-nine shops, an online business and 1,440 employees. Revenue reached ₹486 crore and operating profit ₹31.4 crore in the year ending March 2026. I lead through nine executives and report to the board chaired by Leela Velzhori. The founder family's 52% ownership sits alongside a patient-capital partnership's 32% and management's 16%, including my own 2.2%. Those interests make careful capital discussion necessary; my holding is something to disclose, not evidence that my preference must be the company's best choice.

Our eight-shop refurbishment illustrates that discussion. We approved ₹18.6 crore instead of a proposed ₹54 crore twelve-opening programme. The same eight shops subsequently moved from ₹74.2 crore sales and ₹8.1 crore direct contribution in FY2023 to ₹81.6 crore and ₹9.4 crore in FY2024. Those figures exclude central costs and financing from contribution and do not isolate the effect of refurbishment. A corporate gifting decision narrowed configurations from fifty-two to thirty-one. A family-connected property proposal was reviewed on its own terms, eventually producing two accepted sites and one rejection rather than a simple endorsement of the original three-site offer.

The supplier work remains an uncomfortable reminder of what an enterprise view can miss. We allocated ₹86 lakh of annual financing expense to support earlier settlement and moved dispute discussion earlier, while the later sample still contained four late invoices. I have one current executive directorship and no external board seat. I have not yet registered in the IICA independent directors databank. Before pursuing one external role I would need to complete the relevant preparation, obtain consent and establish that eighteen provisional days would be sufficient. I would bring the experience of making commitments across a retail company, including the occasions when I had to revise my own account of who was financing them.

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