Portrait No. 001
Mounika Maddipatla
Founder - Tax @ Avatar; Co-Founder - Commute Cloud, Inc.
Avatar Advisors, LLC
As the founder of a boutique tax practice, I bring tax strategy small and medium sized businesses, where the need for such strategy services always existed, but was ignored by the Big 4/ Big 8 CPA firms. With a team of tax experts who are ex-Partners/Directors in the Big 4/Big 8 CPA firms,, we are fast growing as an alternative to the larger tax advisory firms. While we offer the regular tax advisory and consulting services, it is our boutique tax offerings in complex areas such as IP valuation and structuring, M&A - pre-acquisition due diligence and post acquisition support, etc. that sets us apart from the smaller local and regional tax firms. I am a big believer in the democratization of knowledge. After having worked for some of the biggest companies in the financial world - Goldman Sachs, EY, PwC, etc. it is satisfying to bring that knowledge and expertise to the start-up and small-sized business world. I believe that no business should miss out on using tax as a strategic tool to achieve their objectives, just because they can't afford the fees that the big tax firms have historically charged.
In her words
“I think I have the most impactful contributions in this world, as a single mother, an immigrant founder and a woman entrepreneur, all three roles that I am devoted to.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
The toughest challenge I have faced, and continue to face, is the limited time I have. I need to split 24 hrs to the multiple ventures I run - both my boutique tax practice, as well as a tech app that I am co-founding as a careerwoman, and balance that with being the sole parent of a prolific 8 yr old who has a thriving acting and modelling career.
Chapter II
Your vision.
My vision is to make complex tax structuring knowledge be easily accessible to start-up and small business founders and executives to level the playing field in some ways, and help them use all tools they need to scale and grow into mature businesses. As a former Greenpeace activist, i am passionate about environmental sustainability. I am the co-founder of an app called CommuteCloud, a car pooling app, through which I hope to do my bit to reduce air pollution and make the environment cleaner for the current and future generations.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
I think I have the most impactful contributions in this world, as a single mother, an immigrant founder and a woman entrepreneur, all three roles that I am devoted to. As a single mother raising a conscientious, kind and caring individual, is what I'd rate as my most important legacy and contribution to the world. The field of finance, tax and accounting doesn't see a lot of founders from India - as most of the Indian founders are in the tech space. I'd like to change that and build a world class tax advisory firm, one that rivals the Big 4 in terms of expertise, to show that such a firms can be started by a Chartered Accountant from India. As a founder in the Bay Area, I see women being grossly under-represented in the start-up community. I've started and led multiple successful ventures, and would like to be an inspiration to other budding women entrepreneurs.