CEO Jyothi Reddy’s Rags-to-Riches Story from India to USA: A Forced Orphan is Now a Millionaire Businesswoman

The United States is just a long-haul flight away from India; but for Jyothi Reddy, it was an eventful journey of toil and moil starting from an orphanage and agricultural fields in India. She now drives a Mercedes Benz in the States, whereas she walked 5 km barefoot to and from school every day in India. She was sent to an orphanage for two full meals a day in childhood, whereas she owns four residential properties in America. She toiled 10 hours a day in the paddy fields for a meagre wage of Rs 5, whereas she gives paychecks to more than 100 employees in the US today.

D Anila Jyothi Reddy is the CEO of a billion-dollar IT company, Key Software Solutions Inc. in Phoenix, Arizona. Her story of survival and success is more poignant than that of those chasing American Dreams, as well as no less inspiring than that of the richest Indian American billionaire. “No compromise, no condition is permanent, nothing is impossible” are the founding principles of her life as a self-made millionaire entrepreneur.

She was one of the five children born to a daily-wage farmer who found it hard to provide for his family in a village of Warangal, Telangana. The everyday struggle of the family forced her father to send Jyothi and her younger sibling to an orphanage where they would get two meals a day to quench their hunger. However, her sister was sent back home as she would frequently fall ill due to homesickness. Jyothi continued to stay there like a forced orphan and completed her studies through grade 10.

Unsurprisingly, her life was not easy at the orphanage. Bathrooms had no water taps there. She would queue up for hours to fetch one bucket of water from a nearby well. Even the food given to her and other inhabitants of the orphanage was improperly cooked, unhygienic, and of poor quality. Her barefoot commute to and from school was a daily marathon for a total distance of 5km. All those hardships could not suppress her never-say-die attitude. Rather, she learned to be self-dependent for her needs.

Fate had more trials and tribulations waiting for Jyothi Reddy. She wanted to continue studying after class 10, but her family married her off to a poor farmer though she was only 16. She started working as a daily-wage farm laborer for Rs 5 per day in order to help her husband make ends meet. She gave birth to two daughters by the time she turned 18. While raising the kids and suffering domestic violence, she felt the need of looking for a decent job.

A new chapter of her life began with good notes when she joined a local government school as a National Service Volunteer for a monthly stipend of Rs 190 back in 1988. After a short stint there, she got a job opportunity for the librarian post at Jana Shiksha Nilayam in Warangal. Being a single parent of two daughters, she supplemented her income by stitching clothes at night. Simultaneously, she furthered her studies and earned a BA degree from BR Ambedkar Open University in 1994.

With a postgraduate degree from Kakatiya University in 1997, Jyothi became a government school teacher. Her life was a square running from working hard for hours to raising the kids, and saving for their future until a surprise visit by her cousin from the United States proved to be a blessing in disguise. It sowed seeds of ‘American Dream’ into her mind. Guided by her, Jyothi Reddy pursued a postgraduate diploma in computer application.

In May 2000 when the dot-com boom peaked up, she travelled to USA with a job offer from a friend of her cousin’s in California and leaving her daughters in a hostel in Telangana. While working in America, she hit upon the idea of starting a consulting business. After 18 months of stay in the US, she travelled back home to see her children. During her trip to India, she came across a priest who predicted that she would be her own boss as she was born to be an entrepreneur. It worked as a catalyst to her American Dream.

After her return to the States, Jyothi Reddy founded her first company – Key Software Solutions Inc. in Phoenix in October 2001 – to help others with visa-related documentation. She roped in her cousin as business partner and gradually extended the business by adding talent recruitment and software development services to the company’s portfolio. The headcount of her American company has exceeded 100.

CEO Jyothi Reddy is also a philanthropist working for the wellbeing of orphans and eligible brides from underprivileged families. She bears wedding expenses for specially-abled girls from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Both of her daughters are married and settled in the US. They also work as software professionals.