On the walls of Latika Khaneja?s office hangs a framed certificate that any amateur golfer would be proud to possess. It is a commendation note for a hole-in-one. ?I used to play golf very seriously. Now I don?t get the time,? says Khaneja, director, Collage Sports Management.

Khaneja, 41, is into a different sport these days. She is a sports agent, one of the best in the country. She is the one who organises the million buck endorsement deals. Of course, she makes a decent packet herself.

For cricketers such as Virendra Sehwag, Dinesh Mongia, Ashish Nehra, Sanjay Bangar, Gautam Gambhir and Dinesh Karthik, she?s their Jerry Maguire. And her latest signing is India?s Olympic shooting star Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.

The job is tougher than it seems. Ringing up CEOs, convincing them to invest in a particular sportsperson, making well-researched presentations, negotiating deals, examining the legal side of contracts ? the range of work is staggering. But the graduate from IIM, Calcutta, has done admirably so far. And being a woman has not held her back. ?Gender is no barrier in corporate India today,? she says.

But Khaneja became a sports agent more by chance than planning. Back in the Nineties, her husband Sumit ran ? he still does, in fact ? his own cricket club. Among those who played for the club were several up-and-coming Delhi players, Sehwag and paceman Amit Bhandari, for instance. So Khaneja knew several cricketers long before they became stars.

When Khaneja started managing Sehwag around June 2001, the Jat from Najafgarh was still struggling to make his mark. It wasn?t easy initially. She recalls preparing a brochure and going about selling the young and talented cricketer to top corporate executives. But the initial response was lukewarm.

It all changed a few months later when Sehwag smashed a 69-ball hundred against New Zealand in Sri Lanka. Soon the deals were pouring in. There was Boost and Hero Honda. ?But I was looking for some good stand-alone ads,? says Khaneja.

As Sehwag?s on-field performance hit the stratosphere, even that wasn?t too hard to come by. Reliance and Mayur Suitings, where he co-starred actress Mahima Chaudhary, were two top companies using Sehwag to endorse their products.

What satisfied her more, says Khaneja, were the endorsement deals she worked out for Dinesh Mongia and Ashish Nehra, both international cricketers but neither a major star. Now even a relative rookie like Gambhir has a couple of endorsements. ?You have to make the guy who is paying believe it is a win-win situation for him,? she says.

Her latest professional challenge, though, is marketing a non-cricketer. Khaneja signed a deal with Rathore in February. Rathore?s silver in the Athens Olympics brought happiness to millions of Indians. Now, Khaneja is hoping her efforts will get him good endorsements too. Recently, the shooter even gave a motivational talk for a tidy six-figure sum. And this is just the beginning.

Developing a relationship of trust with the client is an important part of any sports agent?s life. ?They should also have a comfort level with you,? says Khaneja, who was born and spent the first nine years of her life in different small towns in Canada.

After college, Khaneja worked hard to get into IIM. She did. But after getting her management degree, she soon got married in 1987. The next three years were spent in Mosul, Iraq, where her husband had a family business.

Khaneja started a garment export business in 1991 after the couple came back to India. By the time she was through in 1999, her business was worth Rs 15 crore. ?But I was tired of doing the same thing,? she says.

Those were the heady dotcom days. And Khaneja worked hard to do a book guide show which combined dotcom with television. But it didn?t really work. Then, the sports agent thing happened. And she felt she had finally arrived.

Now she is working on her doctorate with the Faculty of Management Studies in New Delhi. It is about looking at corporate social responsibility as a business model. Latika Khaneja could be playing an entirely new ball game in the future.

Based on a conversation with Avijit Ghosh in New Delhi