Amidst his corporate stint as a Company Secretary, Rajiv witnessed that board evaluation activities were carried out by most companies as a mundane annual compliance exercise. Rather than meeting its true objective of enhancing Board effectiveness by maximising strengths or tackling weaknesses and thereby improving board performance as a whole, the board evaluation activity was merely carried out to meet statutory mandate. The subject being sensitive, board evaluation exercises were carried out by most companies in-house merely as a “ticking the box” exercise to meet the statutory and public disclosure requirements. Board members were often seen reluctant to carry out an honest assessment of their peers with whom they have coexisted over a period of time. Feedbacks from directors on internal questionnaires were measured knowing well that the responses were open to the company management.

The need for an independent and unbiased evaluation by an external facilitator taking into account utmost confidentiality of the evaluation process and results, promoting candid feedback from the board members was the need of the hour. Besides bringing in fresh perspectives and approaches, he realised that an independent facilitator would bring objectivity to the entire evaluation process. Moreover, an independent evaluation would be recognised by all stakeholders as a sign of commitment to excellence in corporate governance from the Board.

He envisioned a secure yet simple to use platform facilitating best-in-practice and effective board evaluation exercises for corporates to encourage them to look beyond the horizon of regular compliance duties. The result was , a user-friendly and secure web-based board evaluation tool which was conceptualised to aid in a cost effective and independent board evaluation process for corporates.