Avtar Celebrates 25 Years in A Memorable Event, Honoring Trail-blazing Second-Career Women & Project Puthri Alumni

Avtar Group, India’s leading workplace culture consulting firm, celebrated its silver jubilee in a memorable event at Hotel Savera, Chennai, on the evening of 18th December 2025. Founded in 2000 by Dr. Saundarya Rajesh to help women enter the workplace, Avtar has today grown into a national social enterprise. Over two+ decades, Avtar has helped more than 100,000 women re-enter the workforce and guided over 800 companies towards authentic inclusion.
 

Avtar Celebrates 25 Years in A Memorable Event, Honoring Trail-blazing Second-Career Women & Project Puthri Alumni
 

Avtar’s 25th anniversary celebration was a deeply moving occasion, marked by two special award segments. One segment honored exemplary second-career women who were placed by Avtar years ago in leading companies across industries, and have since gone on to build remarkable careers. The award recipients – Ms. Anju Awal, Ms. Eswari Rao, Ms. Vyapti Trivedi, Ms. Elakkiya Chandrasekaran, and Ms. Sreeja Nair – were felicitated by the Chief Guest, Ms. Bharathy Bhaskar, renowned speaker and independent director. Congratulating the winners, Ms. Bharathy Bhaskar said, “Restarting a career after a break means rebuilding confidence, skills, and credibility, often while managing disproportionate personal responsibilities. You persisted, delivered, and succeeded. And you proved that capability does not disappear during a pause. Your journeys set the bar for what’s possible after a break.”

The second award segment honored outstanding alumni of Project Puthri, Avtar’s flagship CSR initiative and India’s first career-intentionality program for schoolgirls from underprivileged backgrounds. The awards were presented by acclaimed music director Mr. Bharadwaj to Kamalisri J., Sneha K., and Sharon Kiruba N., who are now doing exceedingly well in their corporate careers.

Speaking at the milestone event, Dr Saundarya Rajesh, Managing Director of Avtar, said, “When Avtar was founded 25 years ago, the goal was simple – to help more women begin their careers. But over time, this mission has grown into something much bigger, encompassing research, benchmarking, countless partnerships, and the complete redesign of systems to remove bias. Now, we celebrate 25 years of careers rebuilt, lives transformed, and workplaces changed for the better. Today’s award winners – second-career women, alumni of Project Puthri, along with every Avtarite, stand as powerful examples of Avtar’s impact. Congratulations to all the winners! Your resilience truly reflects the spirit of Avtar. As we look ahead, we remain committed to building inclusive workplaces and taking our model to over 25 cities by 2030. This is only the beginning.”

The celebration also honored Avtar’s long-serving employees and top performers. Ms. Geetha Ramamoorthy, MD of KBR India and Chief Guest, presented awards to the tenured team members, saying, “Standing by a mission for 25 years is no small feat. These employees have demonstrated resilience, focus, and determination, driving meaningful change that touches numerous lives and workplaces.” The event also featured celebrated Carnatic vocalist Mr. P. Unnikrishnan and Mr. Balaji Nuthalapadi, Executive Director – Technology & Operations, Equitas Small Finance Bank, as special guests, who recognized the exceptional contributions of Team Avtar.
 

Mr. Karthik Ekambaram, Chief Sales Officer of Avtar, and Mr. Umasanker Kandaswamy, Chief Operating Officer, reflected on Avtar’s impactful journey, highlighting key milestones achieved and challenges overcome. Ms. Priya Dayabaran, Chief of Staff and Head – HR, delivered the vote of thanks, concluding with a hopeful outlook for Avtar’s continued journey ahead.

To know more, visit www.avtarinc.com | www.myavtar.com.

About Avtar
Avtar, founded in 2000 by Dr Saundarya Rajesh, is one of India’s leading workplace culture consulting firms, supporting hundreds of companies in creating diverse and supportive workplaces. Avtar is also the country’s largest provider of second career opportunities for women.

An ISO 20700 certified firm, Avtar’s biggest research projects are its annual benchmarking studies – the Best Companies for Women in India (BCWI) and the Most Inclusive Companies Index (MICI). Done in partnership with Seramount, BCWI and MICI are India’s largest workplace inclusion benchmarking studies, which have paved the way for the employment of more women and other under-represented groups. Avtar also promotes inclusive hiring through MyAvtar, India’s first job portal for under-represented professionals.

A snapshot of Avtar’s work in the last 25 years

• Provided advisory services in inclusive practices to 800+ organizations

• Conducted 5000+ workshops and training programs in companies of different sizes, spanning industries and locations

• Facilitated the re-entry of 1,00,000 second-career women into the workforce through MyAvtar.com

• Engaged with 200,000+ women through career enablement programs

• Offered unique skilling programs such as DigiPivot (a prestigious course in digital marketing, conducted in partnership with Google, HUL, and ISB) to hundreds of women.

• Provided career intentionality training, employment guidance, and access to industry leaders every year to 10,000+ girls from underprivileged backgrounds through Project Puthri, an initiative of the Avtar Human Capital Trust (AHCT).

• Impacted 4000+ schoolboys through MITR (Men Impacting Trust and Respect), an initiative by AHCT that mentors boys to be advocates for women.

For its transformational impact in the realm of DEI, Avtar Group was listed in the prestigious Steward Leadership 25 Listing by Straits Times & INSEAD at Singapore in 2022.