The outside view: Meet Jagdip Jagpal, India Art Fair's new director

It's been a hectic four months for Jagdip Jagpal, India Art Fair's (IAF) new director. With her appointment coming through just six months before the 2018 edition of the fair, Jagpal had to relocate "at short notice" to Delhi. Then, she had to get to know and become known in the local arts circles, something that she'd hitherto looked at only from the outside.

Jagpal, 53, is a British national, whose parents emigrated to the UK back in the 1950s. While her mother is from Kolkata and has maintained close links with India, this is Jagpal's first experience of living here, though she say she's visited India often enough.

Jagpal comes to Delhi and IAF after her most recent assignment as part of the team that put together "New North and South", a three-year arts exchange programme involving 11 organisations across South Asia and Britain, spearheaded by Maria Balshaw, who now heads the Tate. "I helped put together the funding and bring it about," says Jagpal, who has a degree in law from and is governor of the London School of Economics.

An LSE degree may seem an unlikely qualification for a career in arts and culture, but what matters, feels Jagpal, 53, far more than subject expertise, is "transferable skills". Over the years, Jagpal has worked in publishing, BBC Radio 4 and television. She was on the board of Almeida Theatre, a studio theatre in London; a non-executive director of a public relations firm working with the creative media industry, and ran a specialist recruitment agency for the fashion sector. From 2007-15, she was trustee of the Wallace Collection, and later worked at the Tate as manager of international programmes and partnerships. "If you look at the areas I've worked in, they've been very much around my interests – intellectual property rights, legal issues, communications. I also have a good visual memory."

It was while working at the Tate, says Jagpal, that her interest turned to India when she met and heard artist Astha Chauhan and Kamini Sawhney, speak about their work at KHOJ and the Jehangir Nicholson gallery in Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja Vastu Sangrahalaya museum, respectively. It was an interest cemented later by her interactions with prominent artists and curators from the region.

As for the art fair, at least for this first edition under her stewardship, Jagpal seems to have settled for making small, incremental changes, especially those geared towards making the visitor experience of the fair more meaningful. So there'll be a more elaborate and publicised children's area in collaboration with Penguin Random House; adjusting the layout and entries so people can navigate the space better; more seating for people; making the catalogue free; fewer panel discussions and more educational talks on authentication, conservation, etc.

And while there'll be several international galleries – many of whom will be exhibiting for the first time, and bringing in artists hitherto not seen in India – Jagpal wants the focus to be strictly on "India and the south Asian story". So 'Platforms', a space dedicated to experimental art practices and art non-profits across South Asia, will be expanded; there'll be an 'Arts Projects' space showing large-scale installations by Indian artists; and a new talks series titled, I know what you did last summer, under which South Asian artists will speak about the international projects they've worked on. "Most people here don't get to know about the high level of creative work that's being done by South Asian artists outside of South Asia. We've got to find ways to get them here. If more was made of what was happening abroad, then people here would appreciate South Asian artists more," says Jagpal.

She may well be right there.