I protected the handover before anyone could apply

Seventeen employees could see an internal vacancy but could not put themselves forward. In 2019, forty-eight people expressed interest in moving inside Zemqevni. Thirty-one received the permission required to apply; seventeen did not. I had supported the rule because managers needed continuity and a credible handover. What I had failed to separate was the opportunity to be considered from the arrangements needed if someone actually moved. The current manager's staffing problem had become an early veto over an employee's possible future.

We removed that permission stage from the application route and kept release planning after selection. Eleven of the seventeen previously blocked employees chose to apply. Four were selected and seven were not; six did not pursue the opportunity. The record does not tell the outcomes of the other thirty-one applicants. Four transfers required ₹27 lakh of overlap expense. Managers still had clients to support and work to hand over. Correcting my judgement meant taking those responsibilities seriously without using them to prevent a person from being considered at all.

I grew up in Kochi and completed a psychology degree at the fictional Nevqesni Social Sciences College in May 1997. In July I joined Navqezni Business Services as a personnel assistant. It was an eighty-six-person service company with ₹12.8 crore revenue for FY ending March 1998. I was one of five personnel colleagues, with no reports or delegated budget. Early work taught me how different an instruction can feel to its writer and to the person who has to act on it between other obligations.

I became HR service lead in July 2003. Navqezni then employed 193 people and recorded ₹46 crore revenue for FY ending March 2004. Nine colleagues worked within ₹76 lakh annual function expense under the people head. I learned to organise a dependable service while listening for difficulties that a neat process description did not reveal. A form could be complete while the employee still did not know what would happen next. A manager could acknowledge a request without having considered its practical effect on another team.

In September 2010 I joined Zemqevni as a people partner. The fictional broker had 148 employees and ₹39 crore commission and fee revenue for FY ending March 2011. Twelve people colleagues worked within ₹1.6 crore annual expense under the CHRO. Moving into insurance intermediation meant understanding the responsibilities of colleagues who coordinate clients, brokers and insurers without confusing those relationships with an insurer's own authority. I had to learn the work before deciding what a good recruitment or development process should ask someone to demonstrate.

From April 2016 I led the people function. The company had 248 employees and ₹82 crore commission and fee revenue for FY ending March 2017. Seventeen colleagues worked within ₹3.2 crore annual expense, reporting to the CEO. Internal movement and shared assignments became more consequential as teams needed each other's experience. My mistaken application-permission rule and the later secondment work belong to that period. They showed how a policy can appear balanced at the point of approval while placing an unreasonable burden on the person expected to make it work.

I became CHRO in January 2022 and now work with twenty-two colleagues through four heads within ₹4.6 crore annual function expense. Elena Tevqemni is CEO and Irfan Dezqerni leads operations. The enterprise has 337 employees across eight offices and recorded ₹126 crore commission and fee revenue for FY ending March 2026. Group employee expense of ₹48 crore is separate from my function budget. An employee vehicle owns 55% and founders 45%; my 0.5% is included in that vehicle. None of those responsibilities or interests gives me a statutory board seat.

Recent work has examined a hiring exercise, outside professional activities and the funding of business travel. These are different decisions, linked by a question about what the company expects someone to provide. I do not assume that every difficulty calls for the same exception or that an HR policy can settle professional, contractual or legal obligations by itself. The useful work is to make the condition visible, hear the people affected and agree a practical response with the responsible colleagues.

I am based in Kozhikode and work in English, Malayalam and Hindi. A first outside governance contribution would require preparation that I have not yet completed. Databank registration and proficiency assessment remain unstarted in this fictional account. Twenty provisional days also require employer agreement and room for induction, travel and exceptional demands. I would bring experience of questioning my own policy assumptions, while learning how collective oversight differs from managing an executive people function.