Climbing the Ladder of Success | Jhansi Reddy

Jhansi Reddy was  born in Choppakatlapalem (Khammam District) in Telangana, India. She is the CEO of a California-based real estate firm, Raj Properties. In addition, Jhansi is an active participant in the movement to empower Telugu women. She is a successful entrepreneur who manages the real estate operations of her firm while also dedicating herself to community service. The story of Jhansi Reddy’s journey is truly remarkable.  

Jhansi Reddy was born in the home of Seelam Ram Mohan Reddy and Saraswathi Reddy in Choppakatlapalem, Khammam. In 1977, she and her mother arrived in the United States after the death of her father. In 1982, she married Dr. Hanumandla Rajender Reddy who currently operates his own private cardiology practice in Hanford, California.

Jhansi began her professional life in 1983 as a pharmacy technician at Medi Mart in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. After a year, she switched to the banking sector, starting as a teller at Savings and Loan Bank. She spent four years working at various banks, including Trenton Bank in Trenton, New Jersey, and Arizona Bank in Phoenix, Arizona.

It was after Jhansi left her banking job that she and her husband considered starting their own real estate business. In 1992 they started the business with Jhansi as CEO, and their first investment was a 32-unit apartment building in Berkeley, California.

Setting up a real estate business is not easy, and takes a considerable amount of monetary and non-monetary investment. Both Jhansi and Dr. Rajender Reddy were determined to set up a successful real estate business. Due to her husband’s busy medical practice schedule, Jhansi had to single-handedly invest a significant amount of time and effort into the business. It was the start of her entrepreneurial career, and putting Raj Properties on the road to success was a challenge. However, Jhansi did not let her husband down and worked tirelessly to turn the business into a huge success. It was due to her time, dedication, determination, and hard work that Raj Properties expanded from 32 rental units to 1000 rental units. From Berkeley, the business spread to other cities, including Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno, and San Leandro.

Family has always been very important to Jhansi, and she was the mother of three young children when she first became CEO of Raj Properties. It was for this reason that she and Rajender initially decided to hire a property management company to oversee their rental units. They started looking for someone who had knowledge about real estate and could take care of Raj Properties while they could focus on their young children. This is when Lakireddy Bali Reddy, owner of Reddy Realty, came into the picture. The couple knew Lakireddy for a while, and therefore decided to entrust him with managing their properties temporarily. In 1996, after almost 5 years, Jhansi and Rajender resumed managing their own properties.

In addition to managing the operations of Raj Properties, Jhansi spends a lot of time advocating for women’s rights and empowerment. She is also involved in community service, and has been part of several non-profit organizations serving the Telugu community. She served as a member of the board of directors for the American Telugu Association (ATA) from 2007 to 2009, and North American Telugu Association (NATA), from 2010 to 2014. She was also the president of the Telangana American Telugu Association (TATA) from 2015 to 2018.

Jhansi Reddy is a true believer in women’s empowerment. She is working tirelessly to fight discrimination against women in homes as well in workplaces. Her focus is to empower Telugu women, for which she founded the non-profit organization, Women Empowerment Telugu Association (WETA) in 2019. It is the first organization of its kind in the United States, dedicated to the empowerment of Telugu women.

In addition, Jhansi and Dr. Rajender Reddy co-founded Hanumandla Rajender and Jhansi Reddy Foundation. It is a non-profit organization that carries out philanthropic activities across the United States and India. In 2006, they donated $1 million to build a student health center at the University of California, Merced. They have also contributed $1 million through various service projects in rural villages across the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Jhansi Reddy is a prominent and well-respected figure in the Telugu community. She is a humanitarian and philanthropist working to improve the lives of people in the Telugu community, especially women, through her two non-profit organizations: Women Empowerment Telugu Association and Hanumandla Rajender and Jhansi Reddy Foundation. Throught her example, she hopes to inspire and motivate others in the Telugu community to make this world a better place.

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