Uma Reddy Paving Way For Womenpreneurs In Mfg Space

Bengaluru: Women entrepreneurship is now actively promoted by government agencies, corporate houses and industry associations. But it was unthinkable during 1980s when India was a closed economy. Educated women professionals were expected to do high-paying jobs in public sector than to pursue business. A handful of women were able to break the glass ceiling and Uma Reddy is one such women entrepreneur, who has made it big in the business world. Importantly, her achievement is in manufacturing sector, where a few women leaders are there, even in current times.

An electrical engineer from the reputed institute- University of Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), Bangalore, Reddy started her entrepreneurial journey way back in 1984. Reddy, a first generation entrepreneur, has not only established Hitech Magnetics & Electronics Pvt Ltd, but has grown it multi-fold since its inception.

“While I was at the final year of engineering, I don’t think, I knew the meaning of the entrepreneur. During one of the holidays after my semester examination, I went to work in my uncle’s factory as an intern. That time, my uncle was supplying components to Bharat Electronics (BEL). During that stint, I did some designing (of electronics work) and got paid for it. Then the thought came, why can’t I do this work directly for the customer? I approached BEL for registering as a vendor. It took me nine months for registering a company and I started doing circuit board designing for Bharat Electronics,” Uma Reddy, MD of Hitech Magnetics & Electronics, told Bizz Buzz.

Currently, her company employs more than 50 people directly in its manufacturing unit with hundreds of jobs created indirectly throughout the supply chain.

Depicting her initial days of struggle, she remembered how her parents had to put their shop as collateral for a bank loan of Rs25,000 from SBI. She has also navigated many technology changes over the years to keep the company’s products relevant and contemporary. Be it the disruption coming from analog to digital in 90’s and beyond or facing competition from big players, Hitech Magnetics & Electronics have successfully adopted the market dynamics under the leadership of this professional turned entrepreneur. Throughout her entrepreneurial journey, she has been promoting women businesses across India. That is the reason that in her company’s shop floor, more than 90 per cent workers are women. “I make sure women are in majority in all the operations of our company. It has been my relentless focus to promote women entrepreneurship in India, especially in the manufacturing sector,” she said.

With such a mission, Reddy has been associated with various industry associations from the initial days of her journey. Currently, she is the Senior Vice-President of FKCCI (Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce& Industry) and is slated to be the first woman President of the association soon in its more than a century old history.

She was also President for AWAKE, CLIK, eMERG and member of FICCI, and UBUNTU Consortium. Reddy had also been member of National Manufacturing Competitive Council (NMCE)-headed by the Prime Minister.

“India as country should do more to attract women into entrepreneurship. And these measures are urgently required if we want to make India a manufacturing hub in the world,” she said.