Following the instruction into the employee's working day

Mandate

Make the conditions attached to work and opportunity explicit and practical

Outcomes

• Revised a hiring exercise with role owners rather than infer ability from a brief performance
• Organised individual review of outside professional activities
• Worked with finance and operations on company-funded travel arrangements

Decisions in context

I became CHRO in January 2022. The current twenty-two-person function works through four heads within ₹4.6 crore annual expense under Elena Tevqemni. Operations head Irfan Dezqerni retains service responsibility. Zemqevni has 337 employees across eight offices and ₹126 crore commission and fee revenue for FY ending March 2026; ₹48 crore group employee expense is a separate measure. The employee vehicle owns 55% and founders 45%, with my 0.5% included in the vehicle. I hold no statutory seat. Recent decisions concern assessment design, outside professional work and the personal resources assumed by business travel. Each required operating or professional colleagues to help resolve the issue. The role has deepened my interest in what an apparently clear work instruction leaves unstated, without making the people function the owner of every consequence.

Reason for the move

Continuing CHRO responsibility while exploring preparation for an outside board contribution

Concurrent appointment

CHRO is an executive management appointment without a statutory directorship.

Mandate

Support internal movement and workable assignments as teams became more interdependent

Outcomes

• Corrected my earlier support for manager permission before internal application
• Separated selection from the practical planning of four transfers
• Resolved eight secondments whose combined work exceeded their stated split

Decisions in context

I began leading the people function in April 2016, with seventeen colleagues and ₹3.2 crore annual expense under the CEO. Zemqevni employed 248 people and recorded ₹82 crore commission and fee revenue for FY ending March 2017. Teams increasingly needed experience from elsewhere in the company, making internal movement and shared work more important. I supported an application-permission rule that later blocked seventeen expressions of interest, then helped change its sequence and fund the work of four transfers. The secondment review also belonged to this period. Those experiences taught me to examine the practical demand inside a policy rather than judge its fairness from the wording alone. Promotion to CHRO widened my responsibility, but the lesson remained personal: an HR safeguard I favour can still create a restriction I have failed to understand.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CHRO in January 2022

Mandate

Connect people processes with the actual work of insurance intermediation

Outcomes

• Learned the distinction between broker coordination and insurer decision authority
• Worked with role owners to understand recruitment and development needs
• Built experience across people services and operating-team priorities

Decisions in context

I joined Zemqevni in September 2010. The 148-person intermediary recorded ₹39 crore commission and fee revenue for FY ending March 2011. Twelve colleagues worked within ₹1.6 crore annual expense under the CHRO. My earlier service experience was useful, but I had to learn the responsibilities of insurance broking before recommending how people should be selected or developed. Client coordination did not mean owning an insurer's underwriting or claims-settlement decision. Role owners helped me understand the evidence a job required and the professional boundaries it carried. The appointment also brought me closer to managers whose people concerns were rooted in real delivery commitments. I learned to listen for those commitments without assuming that every process the manager preferred was the only way to protect them. That tension became central to my later work on internal opportunities.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head of people in April 2016

Mandate

Provide a dependable people service while understanding the practical effect of its instructions

Outcomes

• Moved from individual administration into team responsibility
• Connected employee requests with managers' delivery obligations
• Learned to examine what happened after a process was formally completed

Decisions in context

In July 2003 I became HR service lead at Navqezni. The company had 193 employees and ₹46 crore revenue for FY ending March 2004. Nine colleagues worked within ₹76 lakh annual function expense under the people head. The role required reliable administration, but it also showed me that a completed process was not always a resolved practical question. An employee might have submitted the right request and still be unsure what the organisation expected next. A manager might agree in principle without having considered the work needed to fulfil that agreement. I learned to follow the instruction into its consequences and involve the people who could act on them. The move to broking in 2010 offered a chance to apply that habit in a more specialised service environment while learning a different set of professional responsibilities.

Reason for the move

Joined Zemqevni as people partner in September 2010

Mandate

Support personnel administration and help colleagues understand the next practical step

Outcomes

• Entered employment after completing psychology study in May 1997
• Learned how administrative instructions were experienced by employees
• Built the service foundation for later people-team leadership

Decisions in context

I entered Navqezni in July 1997, two months after completing psychology at Nevqesni Social Sciences College. The eighty-six-person company recorded ₹12.8 crore revenue for FY ending March 1998. I worked under the personnel manager as one of five colleagues, without direct reports or spending authority. Much of the work involved making instructions understandable and records useful to the people who held responsibility. I began noticing that the writer of a process could overlook what an employee had to arrange before complying with it. At that stage I could raise questions and help colleagues find the right person, rather than redesign policy myself. The appointment began a continuous twenty-nine-year career. Its influence remains in my preference for following a work instruction through the practical steps someone must take, rather than judging it only by its administrative completeness.

Reason for the move

Promoted to HR service lead in July 2003