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FEF launches Miss Entrepreneur India, a business reality show for former pageant contestants
Fashion Entrepreneur Fund swaps sashes for spreadsheets with Miss Entrepreneur India, a reality show that puts former pageant queens through a 72-hour bootcamp in leadership and grit
NEW DELHI: Beauty pageants have long sold the fantasy of the perfect woman. Fashion Entrepreneur Fund (FEF) is now selling something rather different: the fantasy of the founder. Its new show, Miss Entrepreneur India (MEI), takes 16 former pageant winners and finalists from across the country and throws them into a 72-hour business bootcamp, testing not their poise on a ramp but their nerve in a boardroom.
The premise is simple and rather clever. Contestants face live pitches, leadership challenges, crisis simulations and team tasks designed to mimic real business pressure, with strategy, resilience and execution replacing swimsuit rounds and talent segments as the metrics that matter. It is FEF Studios’ first original intellectual property on its YouTube platform, Gadbad TV, and the format is a bet that audiences are ready for ambition dressed up as entertainment rather than the other way round.
Sanjay Nigam, founder of Fashion Entrepreneur Fund, put it plainly: the modern crown, he argued, is no longer about appearance but about what a woman can build, lead and achieve. It is a tidy rebrand of the pageant industry’s core product, repositioning contestants from objects of admiration to operators under scrutiny. Manju Yagnik, vice chairperson of Nahar Group and director at FEF, echoed the sentiment, framing beauty as just one sliver of identity and ambition as the more powerful currency.
The show is hosted by Shaine Soni and Daisy Khound and arrives with a full stable of partners befitting a glossy launch: Mario as season powerhouse, Nahar Builders in association, Golubhai Badalia on jewellery, Lakmé Academy powered by Aptech on hair and make-up, Vega on styling, Cool Lip Music on the soundtrack and Nahar’s Nectar Field handling hospitality. The winner walks away with the inaugural MEI title, mentorship and a foothold in the wider FEF ecosystem, a prize structure that treats visibility as a stepping stone rather than the finish line.
Season one premieres on Gadbad TV on YouTube on September 11, 2026, and it is only the opening act. FEF has billed MEI as the first move in a broader original content strategy for the platform, one aimed squarely at the crossing point of ambition, culture, entertainment and entrepreneurship. If it lands, expect the pageant industry’s next generation of hopefuls to start polishing pitch decks alongside their portfolios.
