About

Lavanya Jayaram is the Executive Director, Corporate Engagement at AVPN, where she leads the organisation's engagement with corporations, corporate foundations, CSR leaders, and strategic partners across Asia to mobilise capital and collaboration for impact. Over the past five years at AVPN, she has played a pivotal role in strengthening the organisation's presence and partnerships across the region. She joined AVPN as the Regional Director for South Asia, where she established and expanded AVPN's footprint across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, nurturing the social investment ecosystem across philanthropy, corporate entities, foundations, trusts, impact funds, and development finance institutions. Her work has been driven by a commitment to fostering greater collaboration among funders and catalysing more capital towards impactful solutions across Asia.

Prior to joining AVPN, Lavanya built a distinguished 20-year corporate career spanning marketing, strategy, brand management, digital transformation, communications, sales enablement, integration management, content management, organisational design, and HR systems design. This diverse experience enables her to bridge the worlds of business and social impact, bringing strategic, cross-sector perspectives to complex development challenges.

Lavanya is the co-author of two acclaimed books. What We Really Want: Aspirations of Gen Y (2015) explores the aspirations of tech-savvy millennials and offers insights into building meaningful careers. Her second book, Accelerating Digital Success (Bloomsbury, 2021), provides CEOs and business leaders with practical strategies for organisational reinvention and digital transformation in a post-pandemic world.

Lavanya holds a Master's degree in Communication Studies with a specialisation in Media Research from Savitribai Phule Pune University and a Bachelor's degree in Journalism, Psychology, and English Literature from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore University.