Leela Mehta · Chief Marketing Officer · India
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to chair | Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, after a year as a member |
| Ready to join | Corporate Social Responsibility Committee · Risk Management Committee · Stakeholders Relationship Committee |
I am pursuing one independent directorship at a listed company, probably with revenue between ₹1,000 crore and ₹6,000 crore, outside gas and fuels, whose growth depends on customers adopting something unfamiliar and using it safely: a consumer durables or home-appliance maker, a building-products or water-systems company, a hospital or diagnostics group expanding into tier-2 cities, or a lender serving first-time borrowers. Those businesses share the problems I know best: categories that must be created, safety or suitability that must be taught, dealers or partners whose economics shape the customer's experience, and numbers that can easily describe activity as adoption.
I want to join the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee and the Risk Management Committee, or the Stakeholders Relationship Committee, and after a year to chair the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee if the board wishes. One independent seat is my limit for as long as I hold an executive post. The SEBI Listing Regulations would permit more listed seats, but neither my employer nor the company would be well served by it.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors: annual marketing and acquisition plan, quarterly customer measures and the 2024 CNG supply decision
April 2021–present
Presents the customer section of the quarterly board pack and major commercial proposals; not a director of the company and holds no vote.
Reported to a committee
Health, Safety and Environment Committee of the board: public safety awareness, doorstep audits and third-party damage
October 2022–present
Reports every quarter on audit results by area, safety visits and the call-before-you-dig programme, alongside the head of HSE.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Audit Committee: deferred connection charges and customer billing refunds
2021 and 2023
Presented the accounting and collection risk of the deferred-charge scheme in 2021 and the Akola estimated-billing refund in 2023, at the committee's request.
Reported to a committee
Risk Management Committee: customer safety and reputation risks in the domestic network
2016–2018
Reported twice a year on dormant connections, household safety visits and billing complaints; not a committee member.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Registered
I registered with the IICA Independent Directors' Databank in February 2026. As a chief marketing officer I have not been a director or key managerial person of a company, so I do not expect to be exempt from the online proficiency self-assessment test, and I am preparing to take it in early 2027, well within the period the rules allow after inclusion. Registration does not make me independent of any particular company and does not entitle me to a seat.
I would bring to a board the perspective of someone who has built a consumer category from nothing in cities where the product was unfamiliar and, to some people, frightening. Many listed companies sell products whose value depends on customers using them correctly and trusting them over years: appliances, building products, health services, credit for first-time borrowers. Their boards see sales and complaints. They rarely see whether customers understand what they have bought. I can help a board ask for that evidence and judge whether it is good enough.
I would also bring a habit of measurement that boards tend to find useful and management sometimes finds uncomfortable. I have reported failed campaigns to our board alongside successful ones, replaced registration counts with consumption, and judged dealers on meter data rather than their own reports. A Risk Management Committee benefits from a member who asks how a number was produced before asking whether it is good.
My board experience is as an executive who presents: to Indhanvi's board since 2021, to its Health, Safety and Environment Committee every quarter, and twice to its Audit Committee. I have not served as a director. I would join committees as a member and learn the role before chairing anything. After a year I would be ready to chair a Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, where my work on household programmes and outcome measurement is directly relevant. I would not seek a place on an Audit Committee until I had served on a board.
I would treat the duties set by the Companies Act, Schedule IV and the SEBI Listing Regulations as the floor of the role. Above it, my contribution would be the customer's view of the company, brought in as evidence rather than anecdote.
In 2022 our agency prepared a campaign promising households a fixed percentage saving on piped gas compared with LPG. The figure had been calculated on 2021 prices. During 2022 the administered price of the domestic gas allocated to household supply rose sharply, and when my insight team recalculated, savings for a typical family ranged from 9 to 14 per cent depending on consumption and the cylinder price that month. I withdrew the claim two weeks before launch, writing off about ₹60 lakh of produced material, and replaced it with a bill comparison that customers could run with their own figures. Our managing director thought I was being over-cautious, and the campaign ran without its headline figure. As a director I would ask management to test every customer promise against its worst plausible month, not its best.
In 2023 our insight team found that 7,800 households in Akola had been billed on estimated readings that ran ahead of their actual use, because meter readers could not reach locked homes in the summer months. The over-billing averaged ₹410 a household. Our chief financial officer preferred to correct bills when customers asked, which would have cost less because many would never ask. I recommended an automatic credit with interest, about ₹35 lakh in all, and because it involved reversing revenue, the paper went to the Audit Committee, which approved it. We also changed how we estimate bills for homes we cannot reach. The lesson I would take to another board is to ask how many customers are affected who have not yet complained, because that number usually decides the reputational cost.
My 2024 proposal to defer eight CNG stations touched licence commitments, volume and dealers. Our head of projects disagreed with me, and so did our chief financial officer. I asked each of them to write their objection in their own words, and placed those paragraphs in my paper ahead of my recommendation, with the licence-exposure analysis the fund's nominee director had requested. The board approved the plan with a condition I had not proposed: that the deferred stations open the following year. That condition made the decision better. As an independent director I would look for papers that show the strongest case against the recommendation, and I would ask for one whenever it is missing.
I would spend my first three months learning how the company's customers experience it. I would read two years of board and committee minutes, the risk register, the complaints data and any customer research the company holds, and I would ask to see how complaints are classified, because classification often hides more than it shows. I would visit a factory, a dealer or a service centre and, where possible, a customer's premises with a field team.
Until that first year ends I would sit on committees as an ordinary member and leave chairing to others. I would want to understand how management defines its customer measures, which of them have changed definition in recent years, and where the company's own judgement of reputational risk sits. I would also ask for time alone with the heads of customer service and quality, without the chief executive in the room. At the end of the year I would ask the board chair for direct feedback and use the board's evaluation to judge whether my questions had helped or merely added to the agenda.
My first obligation is to Indhanvi, where I am a full-time executive. I would not join the board of any gas distributor, LPG or CNG marketer, fuel retailer, gas appliance maker or pipeline contractor, any supplier, customer or dealer of Indhanvi, or any company in which Kestrelmoor Infrastructure Fund holds an investment. I would also decline companies selling electric vehicles or charging services that compete with CNG in our areas. Before accepting a seat I would disclose my Indhanvi stock appreciation rights and seek the consent of Indhanvi's board.
If a conflict arose after appointment, I would disclose it at once, recuse myself from the discussion and offer to step down if the relationship was likely to continue. Time is the other conflict, so I would fix board dates a year ahead around Indhanvi's quarterly reviews and festive season, and keep twenty-five days genuinely free, preparation included.
I am a full-time executive of Indhanvi City Gas and hold stock appreciation rights under its employee scheme. I would accept an independent seat only at a company with which Indhanvi, Kestrelmoor Infrastructure Fund and I have no business, family or financial relationship of substance, and I would disclose everything relevant before an appointment is considered. Independence under section 149(6) of the Companies Act is a judgement each board makes about its own company, and I would leave it to that board on the basis of what I disclose.