An expanding responsibility for what happens between teams

Mandate

Connect production, context and acceptance across language, audio and testing services

Outcomes

• Corrected a version handoff that required 420 recorded takes to be repeated
• Brought subtitle timing and creative-use permissions into explicit delivery decisions
• Separated acceptance counts from commercial exposure and completed market packages

Decisions in context

I became COO in February 2022 and now lead 180 operations colleagues through five heads. The role brings language, audio and testing work into one operating account, while the CEO, client and professional owners retain their respective authority. My delegated expense describes the delivery remit, not a personal claim to the company's revenue or every release decision. I have had to correct a handoff I accepted, arrange joint review where timing and meaning meet, and keep unresolved rights outside a commercial promise. Portfolio reporting also needs to explain what acceptance means without letting a count conceal the larger value still awaiting a decision. I present operating matters to directors but hold no statutory appointment. The work has made me more interested in whether the enterprise's account follows its commitments all the way to the result the client is entitled to expect.

Reason for the move

Current COO remit continues while I examine the purpose and demands of a first outside role

Mandate

Join the evidence from language, audio and testing teams into an intelligible delivery commitment

Outcomes

• Expanded responsibility from a delivery group to multiple production disciplines
• Made receiving-team context part of the handoff discussion
• Developed the operating perspective used in the later COO appointment

Decisions in context

The head-of-delivery appointment connected 110 colleagues through four leads, with ₹29 crore annual operating expense. I reported to the CEO as the company grew to 155 people. Each discipline could explain the quality of its own contribution, but the client needed a result in which those contributions worked together. I paid more attention to the handoffs between approvals: the version passed to audio, the context supplied to linguists and the conditions the testing team was asked to examine. This did not make operations the owner of every specialist judgement. It made the relationship between those judgements part of the delivery plan. I learned to ask what the receiving team needed to know before treating a completed file as a completed responsibility. The later COO role widened that question to the company's commercial account and the decisions presented to directors.

Reason for the move

Appointed COO in February 2022

Mandate

Coordinate language and recording outputs with the context in which clients would use them

Outcomes

• Moved from studio coordination into interactive-product delivery
• Connected source material with interface and sequence constraints
• Built responsibility for multiple specialist contributions without replacing their owners

Decisions in context

I moved to Chennai in September 2012 and led 36 colleagues through three leads under the head of operations. The ₹8.4 crore expense remit supported a business serving interactive products rather than only a recording schedule. I had to learn how words and performances functioned inside a sequence, an interface or a player's action. A line could be correct on its own and still require adjustment in context. I worked with specialists to make those conditions visible in the delivery discussion, instead of assuming that completion in one file format settled the client's whole requirement. The move broadened my understanding of what a production handoff carries. It includes the material, but also the source decision, intended use and limits of the review already performed. Those habits became more important as responsibility expanded across the delivery organisation.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head of localisation delivery in June 2017

Mandate

Keep sessions, source material and delivery records aligned with the client's production decisions

Outcomes

• Added staff and expense responsibility to language-production work
• Connected studio bookings with the applicable script and approval
• Learned to distinguish a productive session from usable commissioned output

Decisions in context

Recording coordination brought twelve colleagues and ₹82 lakh annual team expense under the studio head. I managed the practical relationship between people, facilities, scripts and the records needed for delivery. A well-run session could still produce material the client could not use if a source change had not reached the room. I learned to treat that possibility as an operating question without taking over the creative judgement. The relevant owner needed to decide the wording, while the coordination team needed an answer specific enough to act on. This role also taught me why stopping work has a real consequence for people whose time has already been booked. A useful handoff should support a selective decision about what may continue, not force a choice between ignoring uncertainty and cancelling an entire programme. I carried that experience into a broader delivery remit.

Reason for the move

Joined Tazquni as delivery manager in September 2012

Mandate

Prepare supervised transcription records and flag discrepancies in the supplied source

Outcomes

• Applied the English degree to careful production records
• Learned to distinguish an accurate record from an authorised production source
• Raised wording discrepancies with the responsible owner instead of resolving them silently

Decisions in context

I joined the studio in July 1999 after completing the English degree in June. In a six-person group under the production manager, I prepared transcription records and had no reporting staff or expense delegation. Listening accurately was essential, but I also needed to understand why the record existed and which material the next colleague was expected to use. When wording differed between sources, I learned to raise the discrepancy rather than choose the version that sounded most plausible. A junior colleague could identify the uncertainty without becoming the person authorised to settle it. That experience gave later operating work a practical foundation: the usefulness of an accurate file depends on its relationship to the decision it is meant to carry. The move into recording coordination added responsibility for that relationship across people, sessions and delivery records.

Reason for the move

Moved into recording coordination in April 2005