VP Sharma is a technology professional with over 34 years’ global experience in Telecommunications / Networking domains. An alumnus of National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, Pune, he served in Indian Army (Corps of Signals) for 16 years from 1985 to 2001. During his career in Army, he has served in many operational assignments and military technology projects in India and internationally.
He transitioned to corporate world in 2001. From 2001 to 2010, he worked in telecom sector during the years of hyper-growth. During this period, he worked for Airtel, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks in senior positions. An expert in organizational and business transformation, he setup and managed the first Network Operations Centre of Ericsson in India, first 3G operations in Malaysia and Managed Services business of NSN India. At NSN, he led the business transformation to profitable growth.
From 2011-2017, he was Technology Director with Cisco Systems, where he setup and managed Global Technology Support Organisation and Cisco’s Reliance Jio Network Operations.
In 2017, he left his corporate career and along with three of his close friends (two from Cisco and one retired Army Brigadier) to take up social entrepreneurship full-time through two ventures – Gramonnati Trust and Gratitude Farms with a goal to develop 10,000 rural entrepreneurs over the next five years from amongst youth, women and ex-soldiers.
Gratitude Farms has been setup with a mission to develop 5000 ex-soldiers as organic farming entrepreneurs.
He is also an Executive Committee Member of Sri Aurobindo Society (www.aurosociety.org), a global not-for-profit NGO based out of Pondicherry.
He lives in Pondicherry.
He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur (M Tech, EE), and Military college of Telecom Engineering (BE, E&C).
