From describing a transaction to answering for its consequences

Mandate

Connect enterprise systems with authorised business transactions and credible recovery

Outcomes

• Retained business completion alongside technical restoration in a rehearsal
• Held an offline inventory pilot with unresolved competing commitments
• Funded identity usability and supplier-job transfer programmes

Decisions in context

I became CIO in January 2021. My team has 39 colleagues through four heads, with ₹9.4 crore annual operating expense and ₹3.2 crore capital separately approved. The 750-person enterprise recorded ₹280 crore revenue and ₹21 crore operating profit for FY 2026. I report to Vivek Tevqashi and work with Shalini Neqvashi, who retains operating authority. Founders own 60% and an industrial fund 40%; I have no shares. My cases examine business-flow recovery, disconnected inventory commitments, shared-terminal attribution and unattended work during supplier exit. The role requires me to connect technology evidence with the decisions operating and financial owners are responsible for making. I distinguish programme funding from demonstrated results and technical execution from commercial permission. A system's completion message is useful only when the enterprise understands which business condition it actually establishes.

Reason for the move

Current CIO appointment; no statutory board position

Mandate

Lead systems supporting purchasing, stores and manufacturing administration

Outcomes

• Expanded internal systems leadership across functions
• Owned approval of a purchasing integration that created duplicate orders
• Changed review of retries to preserve intended commercial action

Decisions in context

I became head of IT in April 2011, reporting to the CEO. Qelvethi employed 510 people and recorded ₹176 crore revenue for FY 2012. I led 24 colleagues through three leads with ₹5.2 crore annual operating expense. In 2018 I approved an integration that interpreted repeated purchasing requests as new orders when earlier responses were missing. Seventeen duplicate orders with ₹34 lakh face value were cancelled before supply, and repair cost ₹13 lakh. The incident made my approval responsibility concrete. I had accepted a technical persistence mechanism without sufficiently testing the commercial meaning of repetition. Purchasing retained cancellation and supplier communication while my team corrected the system. The experience changed the questions I brought to subsequent automation: what the person intended, what the earlier attempt had already done and how uncertainty would be resolved without inventing another commitment.

Reason for the move

Appointed CIO in January 2021

Mandate

Maintain and develop business systems inside an operating manufacturer

Outcomes

• Moved from implementation services into continuing enterprise responsibility
• Connected purchasing and factory requirements with internal systems work
• Learned the consequences that remain after a launch milestone

Decisions in context

I joined Qelvethi in September 2003 as IT manager under the CFO. The company had 320 employees and ₹88 crore revenue for FY 2004. I led eleven colleagues with ₹1.8 crore annual operating expense. Its metal workshop benches and storage cabinets gave me a practical setting in which purchasing, stores, production and finance depended on connected records. Unlike a delivery assignment, the internal role continued after implementation. I had to understand how people used the system through ordinary operating changes and who owned the decisions it supported. That experience broadened my view of completion. A launched feature could leave a process difficult to use or an exception unclear, and the manufacturer still had to deal with the consequences. I learned to keep process ownership visible while organising technology work around it.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head of IT in April 2011

Mandate

Organise implementation teams around understood customer processes

Outcomes

• Took responsibility for people and project resources
• Connected requirements with testable business actions
• Developed experience before moving into a manufacturer's internal team

Decisions in context

I moved into project management in July 1997. Vezruthi employed 190 people and recorded ₹31 crore revenue for FY 1998. My team had fourteen colleagues and ₹1.1 crore annual project operating expense, reporting to the delivery director. The appointment required me to coordinate how different people understood a customer's work, rather than rely only on a written requirement. I became interested in the exceptions that a convincing demonstration could leave outside its normal sequence. A late response or a changed user could expose an assumption that had never been made explicit. I did not yet own a manufacturer's continuing internal systems, but these assignments prepared me to ask how a process would behave after the delivery team had finished its immediate work. That interest led to my move into Qelvethi.

Reason for the move

Joined Qelvethi in September 2003

Mandate

Understand customer transactions and support system requirements

Outcomes

• Entered systems work after computer engineering
• Learned to describe business actions before software requirements
• Built delivery experience before acquiring management authority

Decisions in context

I joined Vezruthi in July 1992 after completing computer engineering in June. The firm employed 68 people and recorded ₹6.8 crore revenue for FY 1993. I worked within a six-person delivery group reporting to a project manager, with no direct reports or spending approval. My early responsibility was to understand how customers described a transaction and help translate that account into system requirements. I learned to distinguish the action a person wanted to perform from the screen or record used to represent it. Senior colleagues held delivery and commercial decisions. I did not retroactively claim their authority as part of my own early experience. The period established the beginning of a continuous 34-year career and an interest in the meaning that can be lost when business work is expressed as a technical sequence.

Reason for the move

Promoted to project manager in July 1997