Gladrags to riches
Bibhuti Mishra

Jagi Mangat Panda, model to business woman

AT 36, she still looks like a super model with killer looks. The svelte appearance conceals a tough character. Meet Jagi Mangat Panda, co-promoter and Director Ortel Communications Ltd and Chairperson, Orissa State Council Confederation of Indian Industry. "I did not know that I would be into entrepreneurship but I always wanted to be independent. This need has brought me where I am today,"says Jagi, the first Gladrags super model.

Her father was in the construction business in Hyderabad. After her BSc from Osmania University, the first modelling assignment came when she was still in college. Chosen as Miss Andhra Pradesh, she modelled for Apco sarees and Priya pickles. She shifted to Bombay to make a career in modelling. In the early nineties, she made a splash in the ad world in Bombay. She represented India in the World’s Best Model Contest in Turkey. After being crowned Asia’s Best Model in 1993,the same year she left India for Paris to work as a model with the agency USA Paris. Her stint lasted less than a year. Married to Baijyant Panda, a leading industrialist of IMFA (Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys) group, she says: "It was my choice. A modelling career has a short span.I could have gone on for a few more years but I wanted to leave when I was still at the peak,"says Jagi with determination glinting in her eyes. It was the same determination that facilitated her transition from modelling to the world of business

In 1995, she worked with the Projects Department in IMFA and to hone her managerial ability went for a rigorous six-month Executive Development Programme at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. After her return, she took charge of Ortel Communication, her husband’s brainchild, a modern Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) telecommunication network which was set up in Orissa to provide cable television, Internet service,Telephony and other value-added services.

She says, "I never thought of this particular field.It was my husband’s idea since he had a degree in mass communication as well as engineering." Jagi believes taking ideas does not mean losing independence. It is how you bring the ideas to fruition is where your calibre is on test. She certainly has excelled because in just six years time, she has made her company a leading ISP provider and her private TV channel OTV, a premier media voice. On being asked how she would face challenges of the future, she says: "At the end of the day it is the quality of service you provide that matters. We have never compromised on quality and never will."

Jagi has a number of future plans lined up, such as taking OTV from three cities at present to nine cities by the end of the year, coming up with IP multicasting and tying up with an application service provider etc. After a tie-up with British Venture Capitals, Ortel Communication Ltd has emerged as a totally independent unit without any link with IMFA.