She completely justifies the adage ‘beauty with brains’ as she sits at the helm of a fast-growing empire, with the strong support of her better half, successfully handling one of the fastest growing B2B travel business companies in India today. Often spotted at trade shows and events and also letting her hair down once in a while with her girl-gang, she balances the work-home life perfectly, astounding examples of which can be seen in her well-brought up teenagers. Sucheta Nagpal is undoubtedly the shining star of not just ‘Travstarz’ but also the popular 40s Club! Here’s a BOTT exclusive on her journey so far.
Priyanka Saxena Ray
There are few companies in the travel trade that have been started from scratch and made a commendable mark for themselves in a short span of time. When you meet the people who are the force behind these success stories, you find one thing in common – hard work, adaptability to change and perseverance. Sucheta Nagpal is no different.
Born to a typical Punjabi family in Delhi, she was lucky to have a liberal set of parents, who never had any specific roles set for their children and left them to develop their own set of skills. While her brother wanted her to become a fashion designer (since he was one), she decided to follow her “best friend’s” career choice and did a course in interior designing. Pursuing her internship in the field, she realised that dealing with masons, carpenters, plumbers and electricians is not a career path that she would like to follow. It was during this time she met her better half – Pankaj Nagpal. “He was such a thorough gentleman, even at the young age that we met. He would open car doors for not just me but all my girl gang and I absolutely fell in love with his chivalry and also his singing – so you can say he serenaded his way into my heart,” confesses Sucheta, who blushes while talking about her love story, 20 years later still!
Married at a young age of 20, she was warmly welcomed by her in-laws as just another member of her family and was not expected to play the coy-bride dedicated to cooking and caretaking in the house. “My mother-in-law was an educated and ambitious lady, who always told me how important it was for women to work. It was with her backing alone that I started working a year later getting married, in 2000, in a French company as a call-centre executive for just 4 hours a day. Even when I had my son in 2001, I kept working post-delivery as she would handle the forte back home. I worked with them for 4 years and left as Senior Manager in 2004 to join a travel company wherein my role was more demanding in terms of time and energy but had better job prospects and lucrative pay package,” she shares.
After giving that company 3 years, Sucheta left them as Vice President to join another leading company, which was handling Destination Weddings and MICE at that time. In 2007, two years after her daughter was born, she lost her mother-in-law and decided to take a sabbatical for a year, handling kids and homework. But like they say, once a career woman – always a career woman. So with the help and guidance of Pankaj, they together started Travstarz in 2009, which at that time was one of the few B2B companies to cater to international markets. “We started the company and would primarily work with suppliers in Maldives and Mauritius. I was the only person handling things at that time but financials was something that I wasn’t very good at and needed Pankaj to help me out on it,” she confesses.
They combined their strengths, their offices and businesses, which was the start of a growing and successful conglomerate. While her father-in-law started spending more time at home and kids grew up, Sucheta became more and more involved in their travel company. Business started to grow and 8-9 people were appointed in 2012 along with more destinations, to handle the fast expanding corporate. In 2015, they started their online portal, which gave a major thrust to the business at Travstarz. A year later, in 2016, they relocated to Gurgaon for want of a bigger office, a move they would be undertaking again next month in order to meet the demands of their growing team and commerce. A strictly B2B company, Travstarz majorly deals with agents in Tier II, III and even Tier IV cities, where there is lack of knowledge and knowhow. They currently also have offices in Mumbai, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Mauritius, Maldives and USA. So what’s next on horizon? Is she happy?
“I am in a completely happy space with things going well at all fronts – work, home, kids. While I am sure Raghav will go on to pursue a career in Cricket, Ridhima is more likely to join the business whenever she is done with her education. In any case, Pankaj is clear that whenever the kids would want to join, it would have to be as an executive, as only then will they learn the work and value what they have acquired,” she adds.
An extremely warm and affectionate person, who has numerous awards to her credit, Sucheta Nagpal is truly an epitome of beauty and grace. From a young college gal married at 20 to a strong businesswoman who never let her work commitments come in way of her family duties, she has enjoyed quite a journey, which seems to be getting more interesting and enjoyable with each passing year. As her husband continues to serenade to her and kids old enough to do her proud, she is geared to make every-day count and doing a great job at it. The company, with her at the helm, is sure to reach for the “stars” and when it does, we would be here praising her all the same.
