Saundarya Rajesh


Dr Saundarya Rajesh is a social entrepreneur and Founder-President of Avtar. Accredited as the originator of the concept of Second Career opportunities for women in Corporate India, Dr Saundarya is an advisor for several companies on Inclusion and Diversity.
She has been recognised as a “#100Women Achiever" by India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development as also listed in the United Nation’s "Women Transforming India" Her debut book, The 99 Day Diversity Challenge: Creating an Inclusive WorkplaceTM was launched in 2018 in Chennai.

Biography

Born to homemaker Shantha Chandrasekar and pharmaceutical entrepreneur M.S. Chandrasekar in Bangalore, India, on 26 August 1968, Dr Saundarya completed her schooling at St. Joseph of Cluny, after the family shifted to Pondicherry. Dr Saundarya became an entrepreneur in 2000, establishing her first venture Avtar Career Creators in 2000
Currently relaunched as Bruhat Insights Global, the recruitment firm powered by AI provides hiring solutions across India.
In 2000 Dr Saundarya founded Avtar Human Capital Trust and in 2011 founded Flexi Careers India.

Career

Dr Saundarya began her career with Citibank in 1990. She took a break from her career on becoming a mother. She later worked as a producer and compere for All India Radio and Doordarshan between the years 1992 - 95, following which, she held the responsibility of a part-time lecturer at MOP Vaishnav College for Women between 1996 - 2003.
Dr Saundarya became an entrepreneur in 2000, establishing her first venture Avtar Career Creators in 2000. Currently relaunched as Bruhat Insights Global, the recruitment firm powered by AI provides hiring solutions across India.
In 2000, Dr Saundarya founded Avtar Human Capital Trust and in 2011 founded Flexi Careers India.

Founder

Bruhat Insights Global
Formerly known as Avtar Career Creators, Bruhat Insights Global was relaunched as an entity of Avtar in 2018. It is an AIHR company, with predictive and prescriptive analytics for hiring solutions.
Flexi Careers India
Established in December 2011, Flexi Careers India focuses on women’s workforce participation. Through research focusing on women on career breaks, Flexi launched the Segue Sessions, a large-format skill-building initiative for women. Flexi has enabled career opportunities to over 40000 women and trained over 35000 women in attitudinal skills relevant for careers.
Avtar Women
Started in December 2005, Avtar Women was earlier known as Avtar I-Win. Avtar Women provides career guidance and service to women professionals who are working or are on breaks. The network which originally launched with 200 women is now 350000 strong.
Avtar Human Capital Trust
Founded in 2008, Avtar Human Capital Trust is a not-for-profit organization working towards economic empowerment of women. Under the flagship of AHCT, a developmental initiative called Project Puthri was launched, which aims to create Career Intentionality among underprivileged girl students between the age group 13 to 18. It reaches out to over 10,000 young girls through a three-pronged approach of Mentoring, Role Model and Career Coach. Another initiative of AHCT, MITR, educates and empowers young, adolescent male population to become "Gender Champions".

Awards and recognition

  1. 2019: Winds of Change Award in the individual category conferred by The Forum on Workplace Inclusion, University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Dr Saundarya is the first International Awardee to receive this accolade. first Indian to be conferred with the Prestigious "Winds of Change"
  2. 2019: One among the 35 Global leaders featured in the Changemakers: 35 visions of global leadership photography exhibition in London.– Dr.Saundarya Rajesh was presented the prestigious Chevening Certificate
  3. 2019: WebWonderWomen Award by Ministry of Women and Child Development in collaboration with Twitter India and Breakthrough India for using the power of social media to run positive campaign to steer a change in the society on the International Women’s Day.
  4. 2019: Chennai Carnatic Women Empowerment Award by Rotary Club of Chennai Carnatic.
  5. 2019: Golden Aviator Award by Aspire Systems for contribution towards Women Development.
  6. 2018: SRM CURE Award for work in the category of Empowerment.
  7. 2018: Asia’s most Innovative Diversity & Inclusive Leaders Award by the Asia Pacific HRM Congress.
  8. 2017: Change Maker Award by Accenture on the International Women’s Day for leading Indian women stay intentional about their careers.
  9. 2016: Listed in the Top 25 Women Transforming India, by NiTi Aayog.
  10. 2016: The Jeppiaar Icon Award.
  11. 2015: One among the #100 Women Achievers of India, an initiative by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India.
  12. 2014: Naturals Extraordinary Woman on the International Women’s Day.
  13. 2012: FICCI FLO Woman Entrepreneur of the year award for building and creating India’s first women’s careers service.
  14. 2011: TiE Stree Shakti, entrepreneur of the year award.
  15. 2011: The CavinKare ChinniKrishnan Innovation Award for creating career opportunities for women on career break in India Inc.
  16. 2007: The Yuvashakthi Woman Entrepreneur Award.
  17. 2006: The Standard Chartered SCOPE Woman Exemplar Award.

    Association(s) and Acclaim(s)

Working Mother and Avtar Best Companies for Women in India Study
In 2016, Avtar led by Dr Saundarya partnered with Working Mother Media Group in bringing the latter's three decade old "Best Companies for Women study" to India. Companies from across industries and geographies, of varying employee strengths, participated in the study. The study completed four editions of naming Top 10 & 100 Best Companies for Women in India in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. The 2019 Top 10 Best Companies and 100 Best Companies were honoured at an award ceremony in Chennai. 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Career Intentionality and Career Re-entry
Dr Saundarya introduced the concept of Career Intentionality and Career Re-entry to Corporate India. Born as the result of research led by Dr Saundarya, Intentional Career Pathing refers to planned career pathing, especially by women, to counter unplanned attrition or off-ramping from the workplace.
TEDx Talk
Dr Saundarya did a TEDx talk organized at JIPMER in 2019. She spoke on the topic of Second Careers for Women – Re-innervating an important resource, in which she emphasizes the importance of women’s participation in the Indian workforce through a series of anecdotes and research.

Keynote Speaker

  1. Future of Women Conference at Colombo, Sri Lanka on 'Bridging the Gender Divide: Innovate to Include'.
  2. World AI Show, Dubai on 'Artificial Intelligence in HR'.
  3. Top Women Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa on 'The Secret for empowering change through social entrepreneurship'.
  4. Multicultural Women’s Conference, New York, 'Global Spotlight: 100 Best Companies for Women in India'.
  5. Special address at the Society for Diversity, Chicago on 'Gender Inclusion'.
  6. Multicultural Women’s Conference, New York, on 'Recruiting, Retaining and Raising Multicultural Women - The India Story'.

    Publication(s) and Research work(s)

Dr Saundarya’s debut book, The 99 Day Diversity Challenge: Creating an Inclusive WorkplaceTM was launched in 2018 in Chennai. The 99DDC™, published by Sage, has been designed to develop diversity and inclusion mindset in any organization or even individual within the proverbial 99 days. The book demystifies D&I through stories, anecdotes, puzzles and games, word games and a Lexicon of terms used in the D&I space.
Her other academic works include:
  1. With Umasanker Kandaswamy, The know or the no: The emerging impact of AI in HR.
  2. With Anju Rakesh and Dr Divya Kumar, An empirical investigation into the role of mentor competence in the development of career intentionality among the underprivileged girls in India.
  3. With Karthik Ekambaram, Anju Rakesh, and Dr Divya Kumar, Gender Inclusion in an Indian VUCA World.
  4. With Karthik Ekambaram, Anju Rakesh, and Dr Divya Kumar, Gender Sensitization of Adolescent Boys and its Linkage to the Creation of Positive Male Role Models.
  5. Being Human in the Age of AI: Can we draw a line?.
  6. With Umasanker Kandaswamy and Anju Rakesh, The impact of Artificial Intelligence in Talent Acquisition Lifecycle of organizations: A Global Perspective.
  7. With Anju Rakesh and Dr Divya Kumar, Managing millennial talent in diverse organizations in corporate India.
  8. With Anju Rakesh, Career Intentionality Models Leading to Sustained Socio-Economic Development among Underprivileged Girls.
  9. With Anju Rakesh, Influencing Adolescent Girls from underprivileged backgrounds to become career intentional: The Case for India.
  10. With Karthik Ekambaram and Anju Rakesh, Millennials in Corporate India: An analysis of the gender variance in their approach towards work.
  11. With Karthik Ekambaram and Anju Rakesh, Are men more intentional about their careers than women? An exploration of the career trajectories of Indian Professionals.
  12. With Karthik Ekambaram, Generational Diversity in the Indian Workforce: An Exploratory Study.
  13. With Karthik Ekambaram and Anju Rakesh, Indian Women Professionals and their Financial Independence: A Socio Economic Study.
  14. With Karthik Ekambaram and Anju Rakesh, Financial Literacy of Indian Women Professionals: A Socio Economic Study.
  15. With Karthik Ekambaram and Anju Rakesh, Barriers to Flexible Working for Indian Women Professionals: A Cross Industry Study.
  16. With Karthik Ekambaram and Anju Rakesh, Corporate Sector’s Role in the Enablement of Women Careers in India: An Empirical Study.
  17. With Karthik Ekambaram and Anju Rakesh, A Study on Indian Men and Their Multidimensional Perceptions of Women Careers.
  18. Second Career of Women Professionals in India: A Corporate Perspective.

    Personal life

A resident of Chennai, Dr Saundarya is married to V. Rajesh, a Retail marketing professional and her business school classmate. They have two children, Akshey Rajesh, Shivangi Rajesh.