AVIS Viswanathan
Avis Viswanathan (born November 5, 1967) is the "happynesswala" a life coach, a speaker, a happiness curator, author and organizational transformation consultant. He leads change management, culture and leadership development mandates in the corporate sector. He co-founded and is the principal consultant at A V Initiatives, a specialist consulting firm that inspires workplace happiness. Early life and career. Avis was born in Chennai, and studied at the PSBB Senior Secondary School, Delhi Public School and at Nutan Vidyalaya (Gulbarga, Karnataka) before pursuing physics at Sree Narayana College, Kollam, at Kerala University. He is married to Vaani Anand  and has a son, Aashirwad and a daughter, Aanchal. Avis worked for ten years as an investigative, political and business journalist in India. He worked with The Indian Express, India Today, Business World and Business Today. He quit business journalism to join entrepreneur C. Sivasankaran as his executive assistant in 1995. In 1996, he moved from Bengaluru to Chennai to start his own business. In 1996, Avis set up imagequity+ with his wife, Vaani, Asia's first reputation management consulting firm based out of Chennai. The firm went bankrupt in at the end of 2007. While still in bankruptcy, Avis  and Vaani founded A V Initiatives, a consulting firm specializing in workplace happiness. The company trains managers to be happy despite their circumstances. Books. Avis wrote a book, "Fall like a Rose Petal", published by Westland in 2015. The book is in an epistolary style as letters from a father to his children, narrating the incidents and learning from his journey. Public speaking. Avis is a motivational speaker. He was ranked among the Top Ten Motivational Speakers in India by "The Week" magazine. He curates four events centered around inspiring happiness. As of April 2019 Avis has completed anchoring and  hosting 100 curated, live, reflective conversations. These 100 conversations have been completed between January 2015 and April 2019.