Dr. Anuja Gupta, a local businesswoman and community leader, received the Illinois State Excellence Award on August 2, 2021, at the Secretary of State building at 100 West Randolph Avenue in Chicago.
Dr. Gupta was chosen for the award because of her outstanding professional and community achievements.
According to the recipient's press release, the award was presented by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and is one of the highest honours bestowed by the state.
Dr. Gupta is a Chicago-based physician and real estate entrepreneur.
She left her job as a Cardiologist in Chicago after ten years to pursue a full-time career as a real estate investor and developer.
According to the press release, she has built a successful real estate portfolio and has also been involved in real estate sales and brokerage.
She is currently the Managing Partner of Verandah Retirement Community in Schaumburg Township, a $43 million senior living development.
Dr. Gupta is a recipient of several other awards, including The Daily Herald Entrepreneurial Excellence Award 2020, the Cook County Asian Leadership Award 2021, 2020, and 2019, and The Daily Herald Influential Women in Business Award 2018.
She is one of the co-founders of the Women's Empowerment Campaign Chicago (WE), a networking and empowerment platform for Indian and Southeast Asian women entrepreneurs in Chicago. She is also a co-founder of the Voice of Indian-American Voters (VIA), a non-partisan civic engagement platform. Her other notable achievement is that she serves on the board of the ISKCON temple.
The Women's Empowerment Campaign, abbreviated WE, is a registered non-profit 501(c)(3) organisation dedicated to assisting female entrepreneurs. It is a platform for networking and empowerment for Indian and South Asian women in Chicago. Dr. Anuja Gupta, Shital Daftari, and Rita Singh founded WE in November 2017.
Dr. Gupta is married to Dr. Gaurav Kapoor and they have one child.
She credits her professional success to grit and tenacity, which enabled her to overcome increasingly difficult challenges. According to the press release, her personal motto is to continue challenging herself to be more impactful.
