Poonam Jhawer was born on 14 August 1974 in Mumbai, Maharashtra. She was born into a business class family. Her mother Poojashree is a Hindi poet who has written many books and done a lot of live Kavi sammelan. Her family is originally from Rajasthan, India. Jhawer completed her schooling and college education in Mumbai.

Jhawer started her career as a fashion model doing various assignments for brands like Killer Jeans, Dove soap, Paneri sarees and dress materials etc. She also appeared on the cover of Debonair Magazine in 1995.

Jhawer made her debut in Bollywood in Mohra, a movie starring Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty and Raveena Tandon. She was noticed by the film producers while doing an ad shoot which landed her the role of Priya Agnohotri, wife of Sunil Shetty's character. Her role in the film was largely appreciated as being one of the cue points to the main story. She had also done work in a few superhit South Indian movies. Jhawer appeared in a music video for the song "Chand Sa Mukhda" by Ali Haider. She appeared in 2 beautiful songs – Na Kajre k dhar na motiyo singar phir bhi kitni sundar ho (movie Mohra) & Kal Chaudhvin Ki Raat thi (movie – Jiyaala).

Her later work includes the 2003 film Aanch directed by Rajesh Kumar Singh starring Nana Patekar, Paresh Rawal and Ayesha Jhulka. She turned producer with this film which saw great critical acclaim and did moderate business at the box office being more popular in the northern part of India with a niche audience. She also started her music career with the song "Sun Meri Raani" as a singer for the soundtrack of this film. Her role as Lata Thakur was one of the film's highlights. She has also acted in Bhuppy Lahri's film Deewana Hoon Main Tera and The Black and White Fact.

Jhawer is active in regional cinema with roles in South Indian films to her name. She recently starred in a Marathi film called Sansarachi Maya in 2011.

Another recent project Jhawer worked on was titled 2G Radia-Tion which is based on the latest 2G Spectrum Scam. In this she plays the lead role depicting Nira Radia. She said that playing Nira Radia is a role of a lifetime. She added that the makers of the film felt that her personality matches with that of Radia. UK based Hiten Group produced the film with Alpesh Shah and Vijay as the directors and Matthew R Blute as the cinematographer.

Jhawer featured in Muthbhed – A Planned Encounter, starring Mukesh Tiwari and Sanjay Sharma, produced by Kumar Mangat and Suraj Bhardwaj and directed by Suraj Bhardwaj. It was released in early 2011.

In Autumn 2012, Jhawer made her comeback in Bollywood with mega stars like Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Mithun Chakraborty, Govind Namdeo and Mahesh Manjrekar in the hit film OMG: Oh My God!^[8]

Jhawer started to appear in music videos early in her career though it was not until 2003 when she started taking singing as something more than a hobby with her first solo for her home production Aanch.

Jhawer has 9 music videos and 3 music albums to her name titled "Poo4u", "Take Me Home Baby", "Poo Kya Jalwa".^[9]

Jhawer recently appeared alongside Anna Hazare vowing her support during his hunger strike to curb corruption in India supporting the Jan Lokpal Bill for the establishment of Lokpal Offices in India. Jhawer is presently working with various women groups and NGOs.

• Poo4u (2005)
• Take Me Home Baby (2006)
• Poo Kya Jalwa Hain (2009)