Mrs. Padmaja Reddy was born to a family of farmers in a small town Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. Her upbringing and education has made her a strong individual who challenged conventional thinking. Her determination, insights into the livelihoods of the poor and an insatiable appetite for sustainable market linked solutions have gone a long way in establishing her as a first generation entrepreneur.

Making of an entrepreneur - Padmaja, after her post graduation in management, worked in an NGO and later in 1998, started her own entity ‘Spandana’. Microfinance became her calling as she went searching for a scalable, viable, sustainable model of social development – especially focused at low-income women folk.…more . Padmaja continues to put her priorities in the order of – clients first, employees second, organization third and self at the last. With every new challenge, she gets excited and perceives that as an opportunity to prove herself.

No dream is too big for Padmaja. She built an organization which has over 12,000 employees out of grit and conviction. She pursued various trainings on Microfinance – all CGAP modules on Microfinance, a course on Microfinance at Naropa University, U.S.A, Credit and Micro Enterprise Development Training from Durham University Business School, U.K Market Research for Micro Finance at Uganda etc. She continues to steer Spandana in setting new benchmarks for the financial services industry.