Saundarya Rajesh, one of the earliest voices to speak on Gender Diversity & Inclusion of Women in the workplace in India, is a winner of the Standard Chartered SCOPE Woman Exemplar Award 2006,  the Yuvashakthi Entrepreneur of the Year award 2007 and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s Award 2008. The CavinKare Innovation award 2011 for creating India’s first flexi-career service for women was presented to her in March 2011. In September 2011, in an All India search for excellence in women entrepreneurship, Saundarya won the highly prestigious TiE Stree Shakti Entrepreneur of the year award for her work in building and creating India’s first women’s careers service. In Nov 2011, she was awarded the India Today’s Business Wizards of Tamilnadu award and features in a coffee table book on women entrepreneurs by the same publication. In April 2012, she was awarded the FICCI FLO Woman Entrepreneur of the year award and in January 2013, she was awarded the NEST Entrepreneur of the Year award for 2013.

Saundarya did her MBA (1990), from Central University Pondicherry INDIA and is a gold medallist in English Literature (1985) from Madras University, INDIA. She is on the verge of completing her Phd from SRM University in the topic of “Flexible Working as an Enabler of Women’s Workforce Participation”.

Mother of 2 teenagers and wife to a busy professional, Saundarya identified with the thousands of Indian women who had to give up their careers mid-way in response to a work-life balancing need. Via the  social enterprise which she leads, FLEXI Careers India and the AVTAR Human Capital Trust, Saundarya works with over 26,000 women managers who are part of the AVTAR I-WIN network – Interim Women manager’s Interface Network. AVTAR I-WIN’s vision is to engage with the larger population of over 1.5 million Indian women who have dropped off the career track over the past 2 decades and who can be the real answer to India’s talent/skill shortage.

Saundarya is among the earliest and most published subject matter experts in India in the concept of Flexibility and Flexible Working. She has represented India in many conferences around the globe, speaking about Flexibility and flexible working as a panacea to the low representation of women in the workplace. After her work at UK and US as part of consulate-led missions for gender diversity and women’s workforce participation, Saundarya has been instrumental in cutting-edge work done by AVTAR in the space of creating flexi-careers.  Companies which believe in providing a flexible work environment to their people have used AVTAR’s consulting services in ‘Flexidizing and Unbundling’ jobs – concepts which are the brainchild of Saundarya. AVTAR I-WIN was showcased as an ‘India innovation’ in Outlook Business 2008 List of Ten Niche services, as also in the Diversity & Inclusion conference at Hong Kong 2008. Saundarya was invited to speak at the SHRM’s annual conference in July 2010 at San Diego on the topic ‘Flexible Working Methods to Promote Organizational Diversity’ and to Hillary Clinton’s VITAL VOICES – a summit of women business leaders in Sep 2010.

Saundarya has authored several white papers and journal articles relating to Flexible working, the Indian Woman Professional, Women’s Careers, Work-life Balance, Career Re-entry and Women’s Workforce Participation. Her papers have been published in Journals such as The Atheneum (Bharathidasan Institute of Management) (2010), The International Journal of Management (2012), Society for Human Resource Management (2012), The International Journal of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Research (2013), International Journal of Research in Commerce and Management (2011) and The Journal of NIPM (Kerala chapter) (2013). Saundarya is also frequently quoted in business papers and mainstream newspapers for her views on women’s workforce participation as also for the research she has spearheaded in creating a sustainable workplace of the future. She writes a column on Gender Balance for Economic Times and on Second Careers for Business Line.

Saundarya attributes all her work to the inspiration she derives from Goddess Abhirami of Thirukadayur. Her translation of the Abhirami Andhadhi into English has recently been published. Saundarya is also a huge fan of Mahakavi Bharathiyar’s works in Tamizh.