Pankaj Kharbanda, The Man Who Revolutionized India's Male Pageant Industry

A fine culinary artist, cuisine, food connoisseur and analyst, finance executive, and a successful entrepreneur, the current vice president of Rubaru Group, Pankaj Kharbanda is an ingenious and multifaceted personality with a string of accomplishments behind him. Having completed his education from the prestigious University of London, he had a multifarious career before joining the Rubaru Group and leading it to new and innovative heights.

 In 2018, he decided to put his major focus on the Indian male pageant industry. With his rich experience and knowledge, he gave a new direction and vision to the Rubaru Mr. India championship.

 For the first time in history, he brought the Rubaru Mr. India competition to Goa in order to celebrate the pageant's 15th anniversary. Pankaj stated, "Indian male pageant industry is still in its initial phase and is constantly evolving. We have to feed the right content to the industry so that it evolves in a way that is beneficial to everyone. Otherwise, without such selective pressures, the industry would go nowhere and would be stagnant in no time! We need to be as diverse as possible."

 Pankaj Kharbanda brought several reforms in the Indian male pageant industry that broke the long-prevailing misconception that a man's superficial qualities help him the most while competing at a male beauty pageant. He introduced several changes in the Rubaru Mr. India contest and made the event more transparent to the public.

 Some of the most significant changes brought by him include introducing the social impact and awareness segment, national costume segment and making the Mr. India contest open to differently-abled men. Never in the history of Indian male pageantry were such things witnessed until they were introduced after 2018. In addition to that, he decided to make all the preliminary interviews of the candidates available to the public so that people could know the candidates better and the winner's selection process could be made as per the audience choice.

 According to Pankaj Kharbanda, "A Mr. India is a public figure that represents the entire nation, so he must represent the people and get acceptance from them at a larger scale rather than being an organizational figure."

 Such vigour and passion for change have made Pankaj Kharbanda change-maker par excellence.