The scope behind thirty years of commercial judgement

Mandate

Develop growth choices that retain funding duration, economic concentration and the responsibility attached to proposed income

Outcomes

• Withdrew a broad term-extension recommendation after finance exposed its missing funding demand
• Rebuilt a programme from ₹250 crore to ₹205 crore after authorised group limits changed the available opportunity
• Kept a portfolio-purchase assessment conditional and the cost of longer funding visible

Decisions in context

The CSO appointment gave me responsibility for assembling the strategic choice across commercial and professional perspectives. I lead twelve colleagues through three managers, with a defined function expense, and report to the CEO. The company's ₹840 crore loan book describes enterprise scale; it is not lending authority held by my team. The cases include recommendations to decline terms, reduce proposed volume and accept additional cost. They also include the longer-duration proposal I initially supported before finance's correction changed my view. CFO Saba Tezvuri retains financing and accounting responsibilities, while credit, risk and legal owners retain their approvals. I want the resulting strategy account to make those decisions and their consequences visible together. My exposure to directors comes through executive presentations, not a statutory seat. Preparing for a first outside role requires learning how to contribute to collective oversight beyond advocating an executive recommendation.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; preparing for a first outside board contribution

Mandate

Connect portfolio-development proposals with their funding and economic exposure assumptions

Outcomes

• Brought portfolio mix and financing conditions into commercial planning discussions
• Worked with risk owners on the meaning of buyer and group concentration
• Developed the cross-functional perspective carried into the CSO appointment

Decisions in context

The portfolio-strategy role widened my view beyond annual planning. I led nine colleagues through two managers and reported to the CEO, while finance and risk colleagues held their professional responsibilities. A projected income line was easier to understand when the paper also showed the amount outstanding, the time for which it would be funded and the relationships on which repayment depended. I began to examine whether growth measures described the same proposition across the commercial and financing accounts. That did not make me an underwriter or treasury decision-maker. It made my recommendations more useful to those owners and to the CEO. The later CSO appointment added responsibility for bringing the broader choices together, including opportunities that should remain smaller or unfinished when the available evidence did not support the original scale or terms.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CSO in February 2021

Mandate

Translate commercial proposals into explicit planning assumptions and resource comparisons

Outcomes

• Learned the difference between monthly funded flow and outstanding portfolio amount
• Connected business proposals with finance and credit review
• Built sector knowledge after moving from commercial research

Decisions in context

Joining the lender brought me to Nashik and into a business where time changed the resources behind a commercial proposition. Six colleagues worked in the planning group under my management, with an annual function expense under the CFO. I needed to learn the company's financing and credit context rather than assume that research experience supplied those disciplines. The early work involved making assumptions explicit enough for their owners to challenge: how much business was proposed, how long it remained funded and what customer behaviour the model assumed. I learned to distinguish the portfolio's size from the budget or authority of the planning team. The move into portfolio strategy followed a stronger ability to connect the commercial account with the resource demand behind it, while leaving underwriting and financing decisions with the people authorised to make them.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head of portfolio strategy in June 2015

Mandate

Manage commercial studies that distinguish evidence about demand from assumptions about profitable delivery

Outcomes

• Added people and budget responsibility to analytical work
• Required proposals to state the resources implied by the demand estimate
• Prepared for an internal planning role with continuing business consequences

Decisions in context

Managing research meant taking responsibility for the account a client would use after the study ended. Nine researchers worked through two leads, and I held an annual expense allocation under the research director. A large addressable opportunity could still require a delivery or funding model the client had not established. I asked teams to separate what the evidence said about demand from what the recommendation assumed about the organisation's ability to serve it. That distinction made some studies less immediately persuasive, but more useful for the next decision. I also learned to keep uncertainty visible when evidence from different customer groups did not support one simple conclusion. The move to an internal planning role reflected a wish to follow those assumptions through an actual business, rather than finish at the point where a research recommendation was delivered.

Reason for the move

Joined Qavrethi in September 2009 and relocated to Nashik

Mandate

Prepare and examine commercial evidence under project supervision

Outcomes

• Built research practice following the economics degree
• Learned to preserve the population and conditions behind a finding
• Developed the analytical foundation for later planning responsibility

Decisions in context

I began work in July 1996 after completing the economics degree in June. As an analyst in a five-person project group, I reported to a project manager and had no staff or spending authority. The practical lesson was that an attractive total could conceal several different populations or assumptions. I learned to ask what the figure counted, which period it covered and whether the proposed conclusion followed from that evidence. Those questions did not give a junior analyst authority over a client's commercial decision. They helped make the research usable by the people who held it. Later responsibility for a team and budget grew from that foundation. I still recognise the same challenge in a growth paper: the number can be correct while the claim attached to it asks it to establish more than the work has actually shown.

Reason for the move

Promoted to research manager in April 2003