Born and raised in Hyderabad, India, Poonam Kaur did her schooling at Hyderabad Public School, before doing fashion designing at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Delhi. In 2006, after her studies, she signed up for a film to be directed by Teja, which didn't take off for unknown reasons. However, she took an offer for another Teja film, Oka V Chitram. Even before the release of that film, Kaur was pursuing a leadership role in another Telugu film, Mayajalam, which was released first.
Subsequently, she appeared in several Telugu films as Nikki And Neeraj, enacting the title role of Nikki, and in Souryam, alongside Gopichand and Anushka Shetty. For her performance in Souryam, Poonam received a nomination for the Best Supporting Actress Award for 2008. She made her acting debut in the Tamil and Kannada film industries,with S A Chandrasekhar's Nenjirukkum Varai and Bandhu Balaga, respectively. In 2010, she made a comeback in Tamil with the highly anticipated Unnaipol Oruvan, a remake of the 2008 Bollywood film, A Wednesday!, in which she played a small supporting role alongside Kamal Haasan and Mohanlal. She reprised her role in the Telugu remake of the same film called, Eenadu. She made her Malayalam debut with Bangles as Avanthika in 2013.
Poonam also appeared in other Telugu films like Vinayakudu starring Krishnudu, Ganesh starring Ram, and Nagavalli starring Venkatesh. She is also seen in other small-budget movies like Brahmigadi Katha, Superstar Kidnap, Aadu Magaadra Bujji, Srinivasa Kalyanam, Next Enti? Nathicharami.
Recently, she was nominated as a brand ambassador for the Miss Telangana event and a member of the Congress Party.
