Vinatha M Reddy

India

Ms.Vinatha Reddy has been committed to the development sector since 1995. As the Managing Trustee of the T. Muniswamappa Trust, a registered public charitable trust, she was instrumental in implementing a number of socially beneficial projects in and around Bangalore, Karnataka.

Having being deeply moved by the story of Professor Muhammad Yunus and that of Microfinance in Bangladesh – where Grameen Bank had enabled thousands of poor woman become independent and build livelihoods through small amounts of credit, she became intrigued by this developmental tool.

To better understand its ground level workings, Vinatha studied the two leading Grameen Bank replication programs in India - ASA (Activists for Social Alternatives) and SHARE (Society for Helping Awakening Rural Poor through Education).Further, she attended a two-week long immersion training course on the Grameen methodology at the Grameen International Dialogue Program in Dhaka in 1998. Soon after, Vinatha developed and submitted to the Grameen Trust, a pilot-phase micro-credit program proposal. The proposal was accepted and seed capital funding was granted immediately for the start of Grameen Koota in 1999. Since, Vinatha's leadership has taken Grameen Koota through a successful pilot phase, with strategies now focused on scaling up and outreach.

After 8 years of work as an NGO-MFI,Grameen Koota now stands transferred from a programme of the T.Muniswamappa Trust to a Reserve Bank of India registered Non-Banking Financial Company that is an NBFC-MFI. Grameen Koota has been ranked #19 in the Top 50 Microfinance Institutions in the world by Forbes Magazine (2007). It has also been rated by Crisil with a grade of mfR3.

VINATHA'S LEADERSHIP AND MENTORSHIP HAS ENABLED GRAMEEN KOOTA TO MAKE A MEANINGFUL IMPACT, NOT JUST IN AVALAHALLI, OR BANGALORE – BUT AS A SUCCESSFUL MICROFINANCE PROGRAMME ACROSS THE COUNTRY.