Thirty-three years of staying with the question beyond the spreadsheet

Mandate

Coordinate enterprise choices, strategic scenarios and investment recommendations while retaining specialist assessment boundaries.

Outcomes

• Recommended seven initiatives consuming 68 of 72 available review weeks in the 2022 planning window; four initiatives deferred.
• Separated the ₹1,320 crore base premium planning case from the ₹1,500 crore acquisition-dependent case in 2023.
• Recommended ₹2.4 crore feasibility funding for the 2024 telematics proposal rather than an ₹18 crore full-programme commitment.
• Supported the 2025 platform stop decision with ₹1.1 crore closeout funding after ₹7.2 crore incurred expenditure.

Decisions in context

I became CSO with responsibility for the quality of enterprise choices, rather than ownership of every programme discussed in a strategy forum. My twenty-two colleagues organise scenarios, dependencies and recommendations through three heads. The ₹6.9 crore annual functional budget supports that work; it is not a delegated investment fund. I report to Tara Zeqemvi, while finance and insurance specialists retain their respective judgements. The capacity, acquisition, feasibility and platform decisions illustrate different parts of the remit. Each required a recommendation that was narrower than an initial ambition, together with a clear account of what was being given up. I hold 0.2% of total equity within the employee vehicle and have no statutory directorship. I would assess any outside role against those relationships and the continuing demands of my CSO appointment, rather than treating executive exposure to board papers as equivalent to board service.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; interested in a carefully assessed first outside board contribution alongside the executive role.

Mandate

Bring separate programme proposals into an enterprise investment account with explicit options and dependencies.

Outcomes

• Corrected the 2018 three-programme annual benefits model from ₹36 crore to ₹27 crore after identifying ₹9 crore double attribution.
• Coordinated a ₹38 lakh review of benefit definitions and alternative combinations.
• Presented the separate two-programme selection with ₹28 crore proposed capital, without attributing the full portfolio's benefit estimate to it.

Decisions in context

This appointment expanded my responsibility from organising planning submissions to forming an enterprise recommendation. I led seventeen colleagues and worked with sponsors whose programmes were individually important but not independent of one another. The 2018 benefits error is the defining learning from the period. I had supported a ₹41 crore investment proposal and allowed the individual cases to become a combined total without adequately examining overlap. Correcting it required colleagues' time, ₹38 lakh review expenditure and a less convenient presentation of the alternatives. The eventual two-programme approval did not vindicate the original account; its benefits needed separate evaluation. I learned to make the selected combination identifiable throughout the paper. My promotion in January 2021 carried that responsibility forward, including the obligation to challenge my own preferred proposition when another owner could show that its assumptions did not coexist.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CSO after taking wider responsibility for the enterprise planning dialogue.

Mandate

Reconcile business planning submissions and make assumptions understandable across finance, operations and insurance specialties.

Outcomes

• Brought fourteen annual submissions into a common planning-period comparison during the first cycle.
• Separated six proposals whose progress depended on decisions outside the sponsoring function.
• Established a quarterly discussion of changed assumptions without treating planning status as professional approval.

Decisions in context

Joining an insurer made the boundary of my expertise much clearer. I could assemble an account of proposed business activity, but I could not decide an underwriting or actuarial question through a planning convention. Nine colleagues helped reconcile submissions, identify the period each figure described and show dependencies that sponsors had previously left in supporting notes. The fourteen submissions in my first cycle did not become comparable merely because their tables shared a format. Six proposals required decisions elsewhere in the business, and we kept those conditions visible in discussion. The quarterly review asked what had changed in the assumptions, rather than simply whether a milestone had a favourable colour. I learned to listen for differences in professional meaning before trying to simplify the paper. That experience prepared me for the head-of-strategy role without turning planning coordination into authority over insurance decisions.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead strategy after developing a broader enterprise view of programme choices.

Mandate

Translate client commercial questions into bounded analytical assignments and explain the assumptions behind recommendations.

Outcomes

• Coordinated nine concurrent assignments during the FY 2000 planning period with separate engagement responsibilities.
• Reworked four presentations whose comparable-looking measures used different periods or business boundaries.
• Introduced explicit client-decision dependencies in assignment conclusions instead of implying the adviser could authorise implementation.

Decisions in context

As engagement lead I became responsible for the usefulness of a recommendation, not just the quality of its analysis. Twenty-two colleagues worked across assignments whose questions and evidence differed. I had ₹3.1 crore annual functional expense, while client investment choices remained entirely with clients. Coordinating nine concurrent assignments required clear responsibility rather than an assumption that every team member could move freely between projects. Four presentations were revised when their measures proved to have different periods or business boundaries. I also began making the client's next decision explicit in our conclusions. That practice exposed a limitation of my advisory position: I could recommend a sequence without living with every later interaction between programmes. The move to Qevzenti in September 2007 was a deliberate choice to understand that continuing enterprise responsibility, while learning an unfamiliar industry's professional vocabulary and constraints.

Reason for the move

Moved into insurer planning to take continuing responsibility beyond the end of an advisory assignment.

Mandate

Prepare traceable commercial comparisons and distinguish source facts from assumptions in client analysis.

Outcomes

• Reconciled twelve historical-period comparison tables during the first annual review cycle.
• Flagged three apparent growth comparisons that changed business perimeter between periods.
• Kept source-period notes attached to the figures used in assigned client presentations.

Decisions in context

I joined shortly after my commerce degree, with enthusiasm for a table that reconciled and limited experience of the decisions behind it. I was one of six analysts, without staff or a budget. Preparing twelve historical-period comparisons in my first annual cycle taught me that apparently similar figures could describe different businesses or different lengths of time. Three apparent growth comparisons needed explanation because the perimeter had changed. My responsibility was to flag the problem and prepare a traceable account for the engagement manager, not to decide the client's strategy. I began retaining source-period notes beside the figures even when that made a presentation less tidy. Over the following years I took on more coordination and explanation, leading to promotion in July 1999. That early discipline remains relevant whenever a simple strategic percentage contains more than one kind of change.

Reason for the move

Promoted to engagement lead after taking responsibility for coordinating analytical work and client explanations.