Akraya President, Sonu Ratra Wins the Soroptimist Ruby Award for Women Helping Women

March 8, 2010 - PRLog -- (Sunnyvale, CA): Soroptimist International of Silicon Valley and Akraya, Inc. are proud to announce that Akraya President, Sonu Ratra was named a winner of the club-level 2010 Soroptimist Ruby Award for Women Helping Women.

The Soroptimist Ruby Award honors women who, through their professional or personal efforts, are making extraordinary differences in the lives of other women. Honorees are female leaders who have worked to improve the lives of others and their efforts have had a significant impact inspiring and encourage other women.

Sonu Ratra was chosen for the Ruby Award based on her extraordinary achievements in supporting other minority and women-owned businesses and mentoring women professionals. As a successful woman entrepreneur, Sonu believes that with success comes responsibility. Sonu has been proud to serve on the board of the Northern California Supplier Diversity Council – MBEIC. In this role, Sonu supports MBEIC’s mission to find ways to help women-owned minority businesses reach a larger market. Sonu also makes it her priority to mentor women and provide career guidance.  Since the beginning of the economic downturn, Sonu has been active in guiding the careers of her mentees in job transition. She hosted several networking events such as the “Pay It Forward” Matchmaking Event and the “Woman Power Hour Mixer” with the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Sonu also recently joined The Institute of Economic Empowerment for Women’s Peace Through Business Mentorship Program and became a mentor to Joy Kabera Kansangire, a female business owner from Rwanda hosting Joy in her own home and managing her US business training.

“We chose Ms. Ratra for the 2010 club-level Ruby Award for her outstanding achievements guiding the careers of other women” said Jane Brindle Miller, President of Soroptimist International of Silicon Valley. “Ms. Ratra’s dedication to giving back to her mentees and supporting women-owned businesses make her a strong role model in Silicon Valley. She is a highly-focused but compassionate leader and an inspiration to other women everywhere.”

Ms. Ratra will receive her Ruby Award on March 11th at Soroptimist International of Silicon Valley’s monthly meeting & dinner reception at the Hilton Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA.

Soroptimist International, of which Soroptimist International of Silicon Valley is part, was founded in 1921 in Oakland, CA.  Its members join with 90,000 Soroptimists in more than 120 countries to contribute time and financial support to community-based projects benefiting women and girls.  

About Soroptimist

With almost 95,000 members in 123 countries, Soroptimist International is the largest business and professional women’s volunteer organization in the world offering programs that improve the lives of women through three distinct platforms: economic empowerment, elimination of violence, and gender equality. The Soroptimist Women’s Opportunity Award, the major program of our local federation, provides cash grants for women seeking to improve their lives with the help of additional education and training. Each year, more than $1 million is disbursed to deserving women through this award-winning program.  Soroptimist International of the Americas, a 501(c)(3) organization that relies on charitable donations to support its programs, also sponsors other awards and projects that improve the lives of women and girls in local communities and throughout the world.  For more information on how Soroptimist accomplishes this, visit www.soroptimist.org.

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Akraya, Inc. is a multiple award-winning, fast growing provider of IT, Engineering, Creative & Marketing talent. We have extensive experience supporting Enterprise clients like eBay, Cisco, Oracle and Roche as well as high growth companies like Facebook. Akraya is a woman-owned and minority-owned certified business and also a certified Bay Area Green Business.