Young at the top

Profiled in Parsiana as early as 1997 (see "Touch wood!” July-August ’97), 32-year-old Jimmy Mistry, managing director of Della Tecnica, shares space on the cover of business today (May 11, 2003), with two others described as ‘new new entrepreneurs’ and "tomorrow’s leaders of India Inc.” Mistry also merits a four-page write-up, adorned with illustrations of the company’s interior design and execution, in the July 2003 issue of Business Barons.

In a snapshot profile of Mistry titled "Designer Success,” business today writes: "By the mid 1990s, he had started importing and selling Italian furniture, but believed that he would be better off adding value. ‘We wanted to corporatize our business,’ recollects Mistry, explaining Della Tecnica’s transformation into an interior solutions provider in 2000. The move helped: turnover has zoomed from two lakh rupees in 1995 to Rs 52 crore today; and clients include STAR TV, AC Nielsen and Bajaj Allianz. And so Mistry can afford an office at a 100-year-old colonial style building, a 32,000 sq ft production center at Daman, and a clutch of fast bikes.” But he still misses the Yamaha, the magazine adds, which he had sold for Rs 18,000 to fund his first venture!

Mistry is among the 16 profiles in a swathe of industries from steel and batteries to beedis and wine whose enterprise is, the magazine notes, "about the epiphanic process by which some of us hit upon ideas that work. It involves a healthy dose of opportunism, luck and industry mixed into one compelling brew...”

Jimmy Mistry (left, back): national limelight

In "CEO Office Design, ‘Think Big, Think Different,’” Business Barons commends Della Tecnica’s rapid turnaround time for projects. "It designs and delivers world class interiors within a time frame of 45 to 60 days, be it a 1,000 sq ft office or a 80,000 sq ft corporate building,” be it in Bombay, or Kanpur, Gauhati, Cochin or Trivan­drum. From the design and execution of research and development laboratories for pharmaceutical companies like Fulford India, or news studios for STAR TV, or radio stations for Radio City 91 FM, Mistry’s specialized teams look to every aspect — design and project management, electrical, plumbing, production and installation and even go one step ahead by providing facility maintenance services to their clients after the project is completed.

The Della Tecnica touch at Dadar’s Rustomframna Agiary

The magazine notes the "dynamic character of its youthful and creatively restless founder.” Mistry has a "certain flexibility built into his own nature... This particular trait has become synonymous with the way in which Della Tecnica as a firm operates.”

"Dadar resident Jimmy Mistry is a man with a mission,” writes Fareeda Kanga in the Bombay Times, describing the religious-minded Mistry’s philanthropic design. "As soon as I heard that the 75-year-old Rustomframna Agiary in Dadar needed a facelift, I jumped at the opportunity to offer my expertise...” Mistry said to Kanga. Mistry "spared no energy and expense (solely from his own pocket)” to redo the Agiary’s interiors without changing the basic elements of the original structure. The cracked flooring was replaced where required with Italian marble, broken cornices and molding redone, doors and windows covered with layer upon layer of oil paint were stripped and the glory of old wood restored. Partitions haphazardly fitted which were causing smoke from the fire to remain trapped inside were removed and a proper ventilation system created. "A stunning Zen-like landscaped garden was laid in the compound outside on the lines of the garden at the Swaminarayan temple in London,” writes Kanga. Mistry wishes to offer financial or technical support to other fire-temples too, should they require renovation. "(I) think this is the best way I could repay society and offer thanks for any success I have achieved in this city,” he says.

Among Mistry’s recent innovations is the redoing of the Marine Drive Police Station opposite the Cricket Club of India, with contemporary new interiors seeking to infuse the men in khaki with fresh ambience and energy.