Kartik Sharma: The force behind OMG India’s upswing and a frontrunner for a bigger mandate

Sharma’s elevation caps a five-year upswing, more wins, higher profitability, and a single command for the merged shop

by e4m Staff
Published: Dec 2, 2025 3:16 PM | 3 min read

Kartik Sharma has spent close to three decades stitching together some of Indian media’s biggest mandates. Since taking charge of Omnicom Media Group (OMG) India in 2020, he’s presided over a period of steady share gains and headline account wins, while pushing the network deeper into auto, tech and performance-led media. His tenure follows a long run at Wavemaker/Maxus, where he rose to South Asia CEO and earlier stints at Madison, Mindshare and Lintas, a résumé that explains why clients and competitors alike see him as one of the most seasoned hands in the market.

Sharma’s OMG innings has been defined by new-business momentum and category depth. Industry trackers and trade reports show OMG topping or challenging leaderboards in India and globally on fresh billings through 2024–25, while adding blue-chip mandates across sectors. In India, auto has been a particularly strong vector: OMG secured Tata Motors’ passenger vehicles media in late 2024, and the group’s agencies dominated the inaugural e4m Auto Marketing Awards this year, a visible signal of category heft. Globally, COMvergence and company disclosures have credited OMG with market-leading net new business and billings growth in 2024 and early 2025.

Under Sharma’s leadership, Omnicom Media Group India’s profitability has scaled sharply. Their standalone profit rose to Rs 43.7 crore as of December 2023 from Rs 18.7 crore in December 2020, per Tofler. Standalone sales also climbed to Rs405.5 crore in 2023 from Rs165.83 crore in 2020, highlighting the network’s growth momentum during his tenure.

That pipeline also appears active.

As exchange4media recently reported, Omnicom is the front-runner for Marico’s estimated ₹350–360 crore integrated media mandate a signal of the group’s push to convert performance and commerce chops into full-funnel remits. While final decisions in large pitches can shift, the direction of travel is clear: Sharma has built a machine that is competing credibly for multi-year, multi-platform scopes in a cautious advertising year.

Read more on the Marico account

Colleagues describe his operating style as metrics-first and integration-heavy: unify trading across linear, CTV/OTT and digital, standardise measurement and attention frameworks, and push identity and retail-media solutions into every large brief. Public commentary from OMG and independent trackers backs that narrative, highlighting double-digit billings growth for the group and a consistent flow of competitive wins across quarters.

Before Omnicom, Sharma’s formative years were spent building planning and leadership muscle across the country’s top networks. He completed an MBA at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies after graduating in commerce from Mumbai’s R. A. Podar College, then joined HTA/JWT as a Unilever planner, moved to Lintas, and later Mindshare. At Madison, he headed the Madison Media Research Center, before a decade-plus run at Maxus/Wavemaker culminating in the South Asia CEO role. The through-line: a planner who scaled into a P&L leader, with deep exposure to FMCG, auto, tech and subscription businesses.

If the next cycle for OMG India is about converting scale into durable shares, Sharma’s playbook is hiding in plain sight: keep stacking high-visibility wins (auto, consumer, durables), lean into outcome-linked buying and retail media, and hard-wire measurement that CFOs can trust.