Vijay Shekhar Sharma (born 7 June 1978) is an Indian technology entrepreneur known as the founder and chief executive officer of One97 Communications and its consumer brand Paytm.[1][2][3][4]
In January 2022, the ICANN-supported Universal Acceptance Steering Group appointed him as its Universal Acceptance (UA) Ambassador[5] in India.[6] As of September 2022, he had a net worth of US$1.1 billion according to Forbes.[7]
Vijay Shekhar Sharma was born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh on 7 June 1978, the third of the four children of Sulom Prakash Sharma, a schoolteacher, and Asha Sharma, a homemaker.[9][10] He did his schooling from Harduaganj, a small town near Aligarh.[11] He enrolled in college at the age of 15 and graduated with a B.Tech degree from the Delhi College of Engineering (now Delhi Technological University) at 19 years old [12][13][14]
In 1997, while in college, he started the website indiasite.net, and sold it two years later for US$1 million.[15][16] Three years later, in 2000, he started One97 Communications [17] which offered mobile content including news, cricket scores, ringtones, jokes and exam results.[16] One97 Communications Limited is the parent company of Paytm, a digital payments and financial services company that was launched by Sharma in 2010.[18] In November 2021, Paytm went public raising $2.5 billion at a valuation of $19 billion, making it India's largest initial public offering at that time.[19]
Sharma is also an angel investor who has supported tech startups.[20][21] He has backed a range of companies, including Innov8, InnerChef, GOQii, Zapr, and Hiver, among others.[22]
Sharma joined the board of management at Netaji Subhas University of Technology in Delhi for three years.[23]
In 2024, Sharma stepped down from his role as part-time non-executive chairman and board member of Paytm Payments Bank. This decision followed regulatory challenges encountered by the bank with the Reserve Bank of India.[24][25]
He is married to Mridula Parashar Sharma and they have a child.[40]
Sharma has been named as the UN Environment's 'Patron for Clean Air', where he helps to drive environmental action and awareness and advocate for the goals of United Nations Environment's global Breathe Life campaign.[41][42][43][44][45]
