Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an Indian technology entrepreneur and multimillionaire business magnate. He is the founder chairman, managing director of One97 Communications founded in 1997 and its consumer brand Paytm which he started in 2010.

In January 2022, the ICANN-supported Universal Acceptance Steering Group appointed him as UA Ambassador in India. As of September 2022, he had a net worth of US$1.1 billion according to Forbes.

Early life and education

Vijay Shekhar Sharma was born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh on 15 July 1978, the third of the four children of Sulom Prakash, a school teacher, and Asha Sharma, a homemaker. He did his schooling from Harduaganj, a small town near Aligarh. He was a child prodigy, beginning his college life at the age of 15 and graduating as an engineer with a B.Tech degree from the Delhi College of Engineering (now Delhi Technological University) when he was 19 years old.

Career

In 1997, while in college, he started the website indiasite.net, and sold it two years later for US$1 million. Three years later, in 2000, he started One97 Communications  which offered mobile content including news, cricket scores, ringtones, jokes and exam results. One97 Communications Limited is the parent company of Paytm, a digital payments and financial services company which was launched by Sharma in 2010. 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.

Sharma is also an angel investor who has supported tech startups.

Awards and recognition

Won the Best Serial Entrepreneur Award at the Rural and Urban Development Summit and Awards 2022 presented by the Minister of State for Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India.
Ranked the Youngest Indian Billionaire by Forbes magazine. 
In 2018, he was named the Entrepreneur of the Year by AIMA .
Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2017.
ET Entrepreneur of the Year, by The Economic Times in 2016
Ranked by GQ in their listing of the 50 most influential young Indians of 2017.
In 2017, he became the Dataquest IT Man of the year.
Received an Honorary doctorate from Amity University, Gurgaon, in 2016.
Honored with the Yash Bharati, the highest state civilian award of the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 2016.
Named as the Businessman of the Year at GQ Men of the Year Awards 2016.
He was conferred with the NDTV Indian of the Year in 2016.
Awarded the Impact Person of the Year Award in 2016.
Named India's Hottest Business Leader under 40 by The Economic Times in 2015.
In September 2015, he was named CEO of the Year by SABRE Award.

Other work

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.