Born at Jabalpur in India, Swati began her music career at a very young age through regular performances on All India Radio, Bhopal and later shifted to Bombay to further her academic career ( Textile Designing ) at Sir J. J. School of Arts. The music scene in Bombay quickly caught up with Swati and soon she started performing at private concerts and also on All India Radio, Bombay and Doordarshan TV Channel, Bombay. Swati is the daughter of Renowned Hindustani Classical Academic and Scholar Dr Sushila Pohankar, who has a Doctorate in Indian Classical & Folk Music. Swati has been groomed by her mother from an early age in the field of Classical, Light Classical, Ghazals, Folk, and Devotional music. Swati shifted to London in 1990. After having gone through an initial settling phase concentrating on private Mehfils / Concerts, Swati was approached by the renowned Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain for recording a track in Naiki Kanada which was published on the album "Little Buddha, The Secret Score" by Milan.

At a Recording session, the well known Music Producer Biddu noticed her talent and offered her a duet in his next album "FAREBI" for HMV. Swati went on to sing 3 tracks in this album which included 2 solo tracks. Pleased with her performance in Farebi, Biddu also recorded her in a duet with Sonu Nigam for the album "KISMAT" produced by Magnasound. Later, Navras Records, U.K released an album by eminent Hindi Film Director Muzaffar Ali called "Paigham-e-Mohabbat" which featured ghazals by famous singers & lyricists from India & Pakistan…Swati recorded a ghazal track in this album which was penned by Ibn-e-Insha.

Swati's most recent published work includes a Thumri album "Birha" along with her elder brother Pandit Ajay Pohankar which was released by Sony Nad Music in India in August 2000.

She continues to record creative music with a number of other talented world musicians and plans to launch her completed solo Ghazal album in the near future. She also has her team of musicians for providing concerts based on themes like Ghazal, Bhajan, Geet, Light Classical form like Thumri/Dadra and pure classical vocal.