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Mira VelqesmiChief Executive Officer
Portrait of Mira Velqesmi

Chief Executive Officer · India

MiraVelqesmi

Make the commitment as clear as the ambition

The institutional request book showed ₹8.4 crore, and I allowed that total to support a purchasing discussion as though every request carried the same commitment.

Open to
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  • Advisory roles
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Make the commitment as clear as the ambition

I lead Zemqurvi Books & Reading from Shillong. Our twenty-one bookshops and institutional supply business employ 620 people across four eastern and northeastern states. For FY ending March 2026, the fictional enterprise recorded ₹186 crore revenue and ₹8.8 crore operating profit. Seven executives report to me; material capital goes to the board chaired by Nandita Zhevqosi. CFO Rohan Temqevri retains financial reporting responsibility.

My thirty-six-year career began in a distributor's accounts team. Institutional sales taught me how a promising request becomes a dependable commitment. Buying and commercial leadership brought me closer to the reader and the local shop. As CEO, I have to bring those perspectives into one account without allowing an attractive growth or community story to hide the resources and authority it requires.

In 2020 I supported purchasing against an ₹8.4 crore institutional request book without keeping ₹2.1 crore of cancellable reservations distinct from the ₹6.3 crore firm portion. Correcting the purchasing basis cost ₹46 lakh in freight and markdown remediation. The mistake was in the planning judgement I endorsed. I do not describe all reservations as a loss, or turn the case into an invented revenue restatement.

Finding the right title was a separate question from selling it

A six-language discovery pilot covered 600 titles at nine shops over twenty-four weeks. In 120 matched title-search tasks, correct finds rose from forty-three to eighty-nine. The ₹1.2 crore programme supported catalogue and colleague capability; it did not establish a sales uplift or improved literacy.

Public events needed an explicit funding decision

Twenty-four free events at twelve shops recorded 960 attendances. Associated direct book gross contribution of ₹7.6 lakh did not cover ₹32 lakh of direct programme expense. We retained the ₹24.4 lakh gap before shop costs and sought a separate ₹25 lakh budget for the following year.

Local authority had to exist beyond the organisation chart

Of 180 routine commercial decisions reviewed before delegation work, 140 came to the CEO. In a later 180-decision comparison, forty-two did. The ₹38 lakh programme clarified authority and training; the routing change alone did not prove faster or better decisions.

Current focus

A bookselling enterprise where institutional commitments, language discovery, family choice and public programmes each have a clear business account. I am also working to make regional judgement usable within the authority the board has approved.

Conversations I welcome

One carefully assessed outside non-executive contribution, alongside my existing executive directorship. Fictional IICA registration is complete, assessment remains unfinished and twenty-six provisional days depend on employer consent, relationship review and the demands of the actual role.

21 shops

Regional bookselling estate

Alongside institutional book supply across four states

₹186 crore

Enterprise revenue

FY ending March 2026; distinct from individual programme measures

1

Executive directorship

Concurrent with CEO responsibility since January 2019

A bookshop can serve readers and still explain what its choices cost. I want our commercial account to distinguish a firm order from a reservation, a found title from a sale and a public event from a self-financing promotion. I also want local colleagues to have genuine authority, so the enterprise does not depend on every ordinary decision finding its way back to me.

Mira Velqesmi

Chief Executive Officer

Areas of stewardship

Where accountability has been mine.

  1. IInstitutional commitment quality
  2. IIMultilingual retail discovery
  3. IIIExplicit public-programme funding
  4. IVUsable regional decision authority

Selected work

Decisions, and what they changed.

I

Repairing the purchasing basis I had built on unequal commitments

In 2020 an institutional request book of ₹8.4 crore supported a purchasing proposal I endorsed.

The full account

II

Giving six-language discovery an enterprise budget

In 2022 we examined whether readers and shop colleagues could locate available titles when names and descriptions appeared in different languages or forms.

The full account

III

Declining exclusive institutional access while keeping ordering open

In 2023 an institution proposed an annual exclusive-access arrangement at ₹28 lakh, linked to indicative book orders of ₹2.8 crore a year.

The full account

In the boardroom

Stewardship beyond the executive role.

  • Zemqurvi Books & Reading

    Executive Director

    Full board; no committee chairmanship claimed

    January 2019–Present

The board record

In the words of others

Trusted by those who appoint.

Mira brought the event programme back as an explicit funding choice. She did not ask the board to accept attendance as proof that the activity had paid for itself.
Nandita ZhevqosiChair, Zemqurvi Books & Reading; fictional colleague
She retained her approval in the account of the institutional purchasing correction. That made the discussion about the commitment we had relied on, rather than merely a new label for the same total.
Rohan TemqevriCFO, Zemqurvi Books & Reading; fictional colleague

The journal

Perspective, set down with care.

An invitation

Contact

One carefully assessed outside non-executive contribution, alongside my existing executive directorship. Fictional IICA registration is complete, assessment remains unfinished and twenty-six provisional days depend on employer consent, relationship review and the demands of the actual role.

Open to
  • Board appointments
  • Advisory roles
  • Speaking invitations
Write to Mira

office@miravelqesmi.example