After more than 13 years in enterprise risk, building a family and working on women’s health awareness, the Vancouver-based professional found herself taking on a challenge that had little to do with her established career. For Ravneet Duggal, stepping onto a pageant stage was less about winning a crown and more about entering unfamiliar territory.
Her debut pageant experience at Glammonn Mrs India Worldwide 2026 ended with her being named first runner-up. Her life therefore encompasses several identities — corporate professional, mother, wife and community founder.
“I had never imagined myself doing something like this,” she says. “Sometimes you become so comfortable with what you know that you forget what it feels like to be a beginner,” she says. The experience, she says, helped her look at confidence differently — not as something that comes only from expertise, but also from being willing to learn. “Never let the roles you play make you forget who you are,” she says. “The biggest learning was to be comfortable with not knowing everything,” she says.
But for Duggal, the significance of the experience lies as much in the journey as in the result. “It was completely outside the space I was comfortable in, and that is precisely what made it interesting. From corporate life to the pageant stage Duggal’s professional journey has been rooted in governance, risk management and leadership. Her work has required structured thinking, decision-making and navigating complex situations. The pageant, by contrast, demanded public expression, stage presence and the ability to be comfortable with being seen and judged in an unfamiliar environment. Rather than treating the two identities as contradictory, Duggal saw the experience as an extension of her personal growth. “I wanted to challenge myself and see what I could learn from an experience where I wasn’t the expert. The process required her to adapt quickly and step outside the professional persona she had built over the years. More than the roles she plays Career and family have been central to Duggal’s life, but so has her interest in women’s health. She is the founder of the Fertility Circle Community, an initiative focused on fertility awareness, medical literacy and creating more open conversations around women’s health. Yet she believes none of these roles should completely define a person. For Duggal, pursuing something for herself does not mean stepping away from family or professional responsibilities. It means acknowledging that personal interests and ambitions can coexist with them. Learning to be a beginner again There is a difference between confidence built through years of experience and the confidence that comes from attempting something completely new. Duggal experienced the latter during the competition. Being on stage meant learning skills and adapting to situations that were unfamiliar to her. It also meant accepting that she would not have complete control over every outcome. “You can prepare, but ultimately you have to trust yourself and enjoy the process. Her 1st Runner-Up title was the tangible outcome of the competition, but the experience also gave her something less visible: the realisation that starting over in an unfamiliar space can itself be rewarding. What comes after the crown Duggal’s professional work, family life and efforts around fertility awareness continue to remain important parts of her life. The pageant has simply added another dimension to that journey. For her, reinvention is not about discarding an existing identity and starting from scratch. It is about allowing room for interests that may have remained unexplored.
“Life doesn’t have to be a choice between the different things that matter to you,” she says. “You can build a career, have a family and still ask yourself what else you want to experience. That question appears to have become an important one for Duggal. Her pageant journey may have ended with a crown, but the larger experience has left her more open to what could come next. For someone who spent years building a life around responsibility and established expertise, perhaps the most significant change was allowing herself to simply try something new. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test Get the latest Lifestyle News and more. Download the TOI app.