Farida ZevqaniChief Financial Officer
Portrait of Farida Zevqani

Chief Financial Officer · India

FaridaZevqani

The receipt is not the whole financial story

I once accepted a management sales measure that grouped recurring subscriptions with one-off commissioned studies.

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The receipt is not the whole financial story

A ₹12 crore subscription receipt can arrive before most of the service has been delivered. A research line can appear loss-making after allocated costs even though closing it would leave the company worse off. A cheaper annualised database price can require a much longer commitment than the research plan supports. Those are the distinctions I want finance to make before a reassuring number becomes an executive decision. I am Farida Zevqani, CFO of the fictional Qevmori Financial Research in Surat.

Our 460 colleagues serve 57 institutional clients through research subscriptions and commissioned economic and financial-scenario studies. Revenue for FY ending March 2026 was ₹186 crore. I lead 31 finance colleagues through four managers, with ₹4.6 crore FY 2026–27 function expense and a separate ₹80 lakh capital programme. Rohan is CEO and Anita leads research. We do not lend, take deposits, hold client investments, issue credit ratings or provide personal investment recommendations. My finance role supports the research enterprise; it does not decide which economic conclusion the research should reach.

My career began in publishing accounts in 1993. It taught me to follow the relationship between a customer's payment and the work that remains to be done. I now bring that habit to subscription recognition, supplier commitments, portfolio economics, currency sensitivity and the distinction between recurring demand and a successful one-off study. The cases include a management metric I had allowed to become too broad. I would rather correct that account while keeping the commercial achievement visible than defend a label that asks the next year's budget to rely on work nobody has yet purchased.

₹12 crore received; ₹3 crore earned in the reviewed quarter

For a defined twelve-month service cohort beginning 1 January 2022, the reviewed policy recognised ₹3 crore through March and retained ₹9 crore as a contract liability. The figures exclude GST and describe this cohort, not every research contract or the company's entire revenue.

A reported line loss did not equal avoidable cash cost

A ₹7.2 crore research line carried ₹4.9 crore avoidable cost and ₹3.5 crore allocated costs that would remain after closure. Its reported ₹1.2 crore loss concealed a ₹2.3 crore contribution toward those continuing costs. That was a decision comparison, not proof the line should remain forever.

The annualised price had a three-year condition

We chose a ₹3.6 crore one-year data licence over a ₹9 crore three-year commitment while research needs remained unsettled. The ₹60 lakh first-year premium was real; the uncommitted later years were not automatically cash savings.

Current focus

Subscription obligations, supplier-option costs, avoidable versus allocated expenditure, currency scenarios and honest distinctions between recurring and project demand.

Conversations I welcome

A first board role involving research or subscription services, subject to fit and consent. Fictional IICA registration May 2026; assessment not yet passed, no exemption. No statutory seat; 26 provisional days.

Before a number decides the argument, I ask what it represents and what would change if we chose differently. An accurate total can still answer the wrong question.

Farida Zevqani

Chief Financial Officer

Areas of stewardship

Where accountability has been mine.

  1. ISubscription obligations and recognition
  2. IIData-licence commitment economics
  3. IIIAvoidable versus allocated research costs
  4. IVPlanning measures and currency assumptions

Selected work

Decisions, and what they changed.

I

Keeping nine months of service beside the cash already received

A defined subscription cohort paid ₹12 crore for twelve months of continuing research service beginning 1 January 2022.

The full account

II

Paying more for one year rather than buying three years we could not yet justify

In 2023 a data supplier offered a three-year licence for ₹9 crore, compared with ₹3.6 crore for a single year.

The full account

III

Testing closure against the costs that would actually leave

A research line generated ₹7.2 crore annual revenue in the FY 2024 review.

The full account

In the words of others

Trusted by those who appoint.

As CEO, I saw Farida preserve the commercial achievement while correcting the recurring-demand label. She explained her own earlier acceptance of the measure instead of making the sales team carry the whole mistake.
Rohan QelvathiChief Executive Officer, Qevmori Financial Research — fictional colleague
I lead research alongside Farida. In the line review, she changed the financial comparison when I asked which costs would actually leave. That gave us a decision to examine together without asking finance to determine the research conclusion.
Anita QezthariHead of Research, Qevmori Financial Research — fictional colleague

The journal

Perspective, set down with care.

An invitation

Contact

A first board role involving research or subscription services, subject to fit and consent. Fictional IICA registration May 2026; assessment not yet passed, no exemption. No statutory seat; 26 provisional days.

Open to
  • Board appointments
  • Speaking invitations
Write to Farida

office@faridazevqani.example