Growth-stage startups outgrow their finance function — decisions run on stale data, cash gets managed by instinct, and fundraising exposes the gaps. I rebuild finance into a system. 

I joined Jeevitam as its first — and still only — finance hire, inheriting a ₹55Cr operating budget run largely on spreadsheets and founder instinct. The first chapter was visibility: a monthly MIS with automated budget-vs-actuals, so leadership stopped debating what the numbers were and started debating what they meant.

The second was credibility. I rebuilt forecasting around drivers, working shoulder-to-shoulder with sales operations, until re-forecasts stopped missing and started steering. The third was leverage: the same model architecture carried a ₹25Cr raise through institutional diligence, and monthly P&L reviews with four business-unit leaders grew into a standing cost agenda with the CFO.

The thread through all of it: automate what repeats, so finance time goes into decisions instead of assembly. The case studies above are this role, told properly.

Five pre-MBA years on the advisory side taught me how outside capital judges a company. I sat inside the due diligence of ₹500 crore of cumulative transaction value — learning which projections survive scrutiny and which fall apart under the first hard question.

I built the analytical work behind that judgment: 3-statement models, DCF, comparable companies and precedent transactions across 35+ engagements aggregating over ₹1,000 crore, and projection models that helped clients raise ₹100Cr+ in debt and growth capital. Coordinating M&A diligence, data rooms and management discussions taught me process discipline — the deals I supported closed a quarter faster.

When I later moved inside an operating company, I already knew exactly what the people across the table would ask. That is the lens everything at Jeevitam is built to withstand.