Chennai: ”Women can be independent, balance their families, work and still earn an identity without compromising on their passion,” says B N Padmaja Priyadarshini (45), a successful entrepreneur from Madipakkam.
Born in a lower middle class family, she has been a strong woman from the beginning and supported her family even in her younger days.
Speaking to News Today, she says, ”At present, I hold multiple post-graduation degrees in statistics, Hindi and management besides Master of Philosophy in International Business and hold a Doctorate too.”
Talking about her initial career, she says, ”I began as a professional in banking sector and worked there for nearly 10 years and my flair for learning eventually resulted in love for teaching. I made a career shift to a business school and taught there for three years.”
Her experience along with passion for women upliftment, culminated in the form of becoming an entrepreneur. She started her own civil consultancy company and has been running it for 10 years now.
She adds, ”My belief in learning made me to pursue a certificate course from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, in women entrepreneurship and after earning a certification, I was curious to do a PhD in the same field.”
In the journey of her doctoral research, she understood disparate issues that women go through to sustain their start-up and understood that the struggle is intense for the ones hailing from poor background and in 2015, she undertook a quest to identify women who possess great talent.
She began nurturing such women and enabled them evolve as successful entrepreneurs and continues to mentor them in several capacities that include enlightening them about beginning a business right from the scratch. Talking about the initiative, she says, ‘Till date, I am supporting and mentoring about 45 women small business owners in my neighbourhood’.
Apart from these roles, she is a corporate trainer and conducts marketing research workshops in SPSS & AMOS and also a visiting faculty of www.mybskool.com. She further says, ”I also handle English communication skills training to military cadets at Officers Training Academy Chennai”.
About her awards and achievements she says, ”I have won ‘Emerging Entrepreneur Award 2015’ from the Indian National Cultural Academy, ‘Outstanding Digital Startup Award 2015’ from VIT University, ‘Senior Woman Entrepreneur Award 2017’ and ”Distinguished Woman Technopreneur Award 2017” on various occasions by National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development, ”Visionary Woman Award 2018” by Visionary Women Circle.”
She further adds, ”I have received many awards, but the Achiever Award 2020, given as part of International Women’s Day by SDNB Vaishnav College, is something special because it is the college that I have studied and I feel proud that they have recognised my works.”
About her family, she says, ”I live in a joint family along with my husband and two children and I consider them as my pillars of support and without them, I could not have achieved this far.”