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Rustom TevqesniChief Strategy Officer
Portrait of Rustom Tevqesni

Chief Strategy Officer · India

RustomTevqesni

Let the proposal reveal what the company will still owe

The acquisition paper contained a phrase I should have challenged before anyone else read it: contracted recurring revenue.

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Let the proposal reveal what the company will still owe

I am the chief strategy officer of Navqetri Writing Stores in Surat. We are a fictional retailer and institutional wholesaler of premium pens, refills and notebooks, with eighteen showrooms and 260 employees. I lead fourteen strategy colleagues through three leads within ₹4.2 crore annual function expense. The company's ₹118 crore revenue is context for that work, not a P&L delegated to me.

My thirty-seven years began in consumer research. Over time I became more interested in the distinction between a persuasive account of demand and a commitment a company can actually rely on. A customer may return without being obliged to buy. A franchise partner may fund a shop while we still carry stock and support. A product can leave the catalogue while its owner still needs a compatible refill.

In 2020 I put ₹42 crore of repeat-customer revenue into a contracted-recurring category for a proposed acquisition. Only ₹14 crore related to defined current agreements; ₹28 crore came from discretionary reorders. I owned the classification. We corrected the paper, deferred the ₹112 crore proposal and funded ₹54 lakh of commercial diligence. Neither category justified treating future revenue as unconditional. The account retains my error rather than presenting the correction as an insight I had from the start.

A minimum changes the royalty account

A proposed licence called for the greater of ₹24 lakh annually or 8% of defined sales. At ₹2 crore sales, ₹24 lakh is an effective 12%, not 8%. We declined the broad rollout commitment and funded a separate six-location research programme under distinct pilot terms.

Someone still had to finance the stock

Ten proposed franchise partners would fund ₹9 crore of fitout, but Navqetri would retain ₹3.2 crore inventory funding and forecast ₹76 lakh annual support. The board limited the first wave to three, subject to qualified terms; the ten-location proposal did not become ten opened stores.

The exit decision had a continuing customer

Retiring six slow-selling fountain-pen models left a reviewed cohort of 12,000 historical unit sales. A ₹1.2 crore parts and service-planning budget supported a commercial route through March 2032. The sales cohort is not a count of active users or an accounting provision.

Current focus

Commercial strategy that gives decision-makers a clear view of contractual dependence, retained investment, shared capacity and obligations after an exit. I want the proposed benefit to travel with the conditions needed to make it credible.

Conversations I welcome

A first outside non-executive contribution after relevant preparation and relationship review. I hold 0.6% within employee ownership, have no statutory seat and offer twenty-three provisional days. Fictional databank registration is complete; proficiency assessment remains unfinished.

14

Strategy colleagues

Three leads within the delegated function remit

₹4.2 crore

Annual function expense

Excludes company P&L and capital-approval authority

37 years

Research and strategy career

Research analyst from July 1989; CSO from January 2020

An attractive strategic label can conceal a different kind of commitment. Repeat purchasing is not necessarily contracted revenue, partner investment does not remove our own capital needs, and deleting a product does not erase the customers who still use it. I work on the account that makes those distinctions available before the company decides.

Rustom Tevqesni

Chief Strategy Officer

Areas of stewardship

Where accountability has been mine.

  1. IDistinguishing habitual demand from contractual dependence
  2. IIExamining licence economics before a broad rollout
  3. IIIFinding the capital retained behind partner-led expansion
  4. IVSequencing strategic choices and their continuing obligations

Selected work

Decisions, and what they changed.

I

I described repeat orders as a contractual commitment

In 2020 I prepared the commercial account for a proposed ₹112 crore acquisition of Davqerzi Institutional Writing.

The full account

II

The eight-percent licence could require twelve percent of sales

In 2022 we reviewed a brand licence for a proposed twenty-eight-location programme.

The full account

III

Partner-funded fitout left inventory and support on our side

A 2023 proposal called for ten franchised locations, each with ₹90 lakh of fitout funded by its partner.

The full account

In the words of others

Trusted by those who appoint.

Rustom makes the obligations within a proposal discussable, including the classification he had to correct in his own acquisition paper.
Anika DelqevriFictional CEO, Navqetri Writing Stores
His commercial account helps finance see the assumption being proposed without presenting strategy as the owner of valuation or funding decisions.
Zubin NevqesmiFictional CFO, Navqetri Writing Stores

The journal

Perspective, set down with care.

An invitation

Contact

A first outside non-executive contribution after relevant preparation and relationship review. I hold 0.6% within employee ownership, have no statutory seat and offer twenty-three provisional days. Fictional databank registration is complete; proficiency assessment remains unfinished.

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

office@rustomtevqesni.example