Hushidar Kharas; Venke Sharma

Venke Sharma is a digital marketing practitioner, recognized by SAP as India??s Most Influential Digitalist Thought Leader in the domain of marketing (215). He had begun advocating digital brand strategy at a time when most brands didn??t even have websites, and he built Tribal DDB India, one of India??s first digital agencies. He subsequently built Leo Burnett??s integrated marketing services agency Arc Worldwide (India); under his leadership, the agency won Cannes Lions for campaigns on Luxor (first Cyber Lion from India) and Tide. During his stint in Jakarta as Leo Burnett??s Head of Digital, he set up the social media practice for Samsung and Coca Cola Indonesia. In a career spanning 18 years, he has championed breakthrough creative thinking with big ideas to build brand demand for clients such as P&G, McDonald??s, Citibank, British Telecom, Air France??KLM, Carrefour, IIM Ahmedabad, HDFC Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Philip Morris, Reliance, Madura Garments, etc. He believes that "social intelligence" is key to shaping business outcomes with actionable insights mined from consumer social media conversations. Venke lives in Mumbai with his wife Haripriya and six-year-old daughter Anupama. He practices Sahaja Yoga meditation and is also a swimming enthusiast. Hushidar Kharas is a passionate marketeer and technophile. He has built campaigns for large customer brands over the last 1 years. After a stint at the Future Group, working on the personal care brand Wild Stone, he moved to Yum Restaurants India where he built the digital and customer engagement practice for KFC India from scratch. His work on the launch of KFC WOW resulted in a Webby, an international award. He was also responsible for setting up online ordering for KFC. He went on to lead digital marketing for Star Sports, building a wildly engaged (and often demanding) base of fans and helping create new properties such as the Pro Kabaddi League and the ISL. His work on the Pro Kabaddi League launch resulted in the campaign winning a Clio Award. He enjoys working on direct- customer-facing media including social and PR, which has given him first-hand experience of the pleasures and pitfalls of the always-on, crisis-prone content marketing paradigm. Hushidar lives in Mumbai with his wife Parinaz and three-year-old daughter Taraneh. He is an avid traveler, amateur photographer, and occasional biker.