Mumbai: Virginia Sharma has joined the largest streaming platform for South Asian music and audio entertainment JioSaavn, as vice president of brand solutions. Based out of JioSaavn’s Gurgaon office, Sharma will lead the company’s global digital ad monetization efforts across platforms. She will be responsible for driving adoption of JioSaavn’s innovative advertising solutions for brands, while overseeing agency and client relationships.
With more than 20 years of experience leading marketing and sales teams, Sharma joins JioSaavn from LinkedIn, where she excelled in the top 10 per cent of sales leaders. Virginia also worked with IBM for more than 15 years in various global and regional roles, including India vice president of marketing and communications before joining LinkedIn Asia Pacific in 2014.
In addition to an impressive track record at some of the world’s largest technology companies, Sharma is an industry leader in her own right. She was recognized on the 2018 Economic Times Women Ahead list, as well as Impact Top 50 Women in Marketing Media and Advertising in both 2018 (#38) and 2019 (#35). Sharma was also the first chairperson for the Marketing Society India Chapter and a member of the Global Advisory Board for UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce. She was the first Indian leader to become a Marketing Academy Fellow delivered by McKinsey and Co. Sharma is currently pursuing her doctorate in Business Administration from Indian School of Business in Business Model Innovation.
“I am excited to join the passionate and like-minded leadership team at JioSaavn, where music and people take center stage every day. Music is a lifelong companion; it evokes moments and memories, it’s a conduit for emotional expression; and it connects people of all ages and backgrounds. As a seasoned marketer and early JioSaavn user, I already recognize many opportunities for brands to find their voice on the JioSaavn platform, allowing them to engage and build loyalty with millions of consumers. Let’s play!” Sharma said about her new role.
Having worked in the US, Singapore, Japan and India, Sharma brings a truly global perspective to JioSaavn’s Brand Solutions team. Part of her new role will be finding innovative solutions that balance a great user experience, advertisers’ needs and respect for content creators. As a former marketer for many years, she is in a unique position to identify with brands looking to achieve a variety of different objectives to grow their businesses.
Vinodh Bhat, co-founder, president and chief strategy officer, JioSaavn, said about Sharma: “As the JioSaavn user base continues to grow, the company was ready for a strong, seasoned and passionate executive in our core market to scale our advertising business. Virginia is recognized as one of the top digital leaders in the country and set records at LinkedIn for monetization in India. She is an accomplished Marketer turned Sales Leader with the proven capability to understand marketer needs and create durable long-term solutions for them, applying a mix of business creativity and strong ad technology. In addition to her wealth of expertise and strategic understanding of the industry, she is also a great culture fit at JioSaavn. We are pleased to welcome her to the team and very excited to work together on this road ahead.”
The on-boarding of Sharma is the latest in a few valuable additions to JioSaavn’s management team. Mihir Shah, VP of consumer revenue, joined the company last year from Hotstar, where he led product and marketing growth teams through the stellar growth in just two years. At JioSaavn, he leads the global consumer premium business and is already demonstrating similar traction. Under Shah’s leadership, a new version of JioSaavn Pro led to an organic 4x growth for JioSaavn’s paid subscriber base in 2019.
