Deeply honoured and humbled: Kartik Sharma on being named e4m Influencer of the Year 2025

Kartik Sharma, CEO of Omnicom Media India, has been honoured with the prestigious e4m Influencer of the Year 2025 award. The dazzling awards night was graced by top industry leaders, heads and experts from the advertising and media world. The prestigious award was presented to Sharma by Gour Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of Tribes Communication, B Thiagarajan, Managing Director of Blue Star Limited and Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW BusinessWorld and Founder, exchange4media Group.

Expressing his happiness on being conferred with the e4m Influencer of the Year 2025 honour, Kartik Sharma said he was deeply humbled by the recognition and overwhelmed by the response he received from current and former colleagues, clients and peers. He shared that the award came as a revelation, making him realise the impact of his work on so many people over the years.

Kartik said he felt truly honoured to receive the recognition. He also extended heartfelt thanks to his family, especially his wife and son, for their constant support. Kartik acknowledged his colleagues, whom he described as close friends, for being the reason he looks forward to coming to work every day and embracing new challenges. He further thanked his clients, media partners and mentors who have stood by him throughout his journey, many of whom evolved from colleagues into lifelong friends. Expressing gratitude to everyone who supported and believed in him, Kartik said he was genuinely thankful for being considered for the honour.

“I'm deeply honoured and humbled to receive this award. With so many memories and good things coming from current, ex-colleagues, clients, it's really overwhelming. I didn't know that whatever I've done has impacted so many people. So, it's a revelation for me. I just continue to do what I do, but I'm deeply honoured. Thanks to my family, my colleagues and my wife and my son”, he said.

“My lovely colleagues who are also friends for many years encourage me every day to take up new challenges. Thanks to all of my clients, media partners and many, many people who have stood behind me throughout my life and turned from colleagues to friends to mentors. Thanks to all of you, really humbled. Thank you so much for, you know, considering me for this role”, Sharma added.

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The award honours visionaries who have demonstrated transformational leadership qualities and achievements over the years. Sharma is a seasoned professional with 25 years of experience in the world of media. He recently took up the role of CEO of Omnicom Media India after Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG.

In the past, he has led Omnicom Media Group (OMG) India since 2020, after more than a decade at Wavemaker/Maxus (including CEO–South Asia) and earlier stints at Madison Media and Mindshare. Prior to joining OMG, Sharma spent two and a half years as CEO for South Asia, Wavemaker (Formed by the merger of Maxus and MEC).

Before this, Sharma worked with renowned agencies such as Lintas, Mindshare, Madison, and Maxus across a diverse set of profiles. With a penchant for building robust client relationships, he carried out extensive work across leading brands such as Unilever, Netflix, Mondelez, L’Oreal, Vodafone, Tata Sky and several others.

Over the years, several industry experts have bagged the honour. Last year, the e4m Influencer of the Year 2023 award was given to the trio of Inshorts - Azhar Iqubal, Deepit Purkayastha and Anunay Pandey. Before that, Prasanth Kumar, who then held the role of CEO of South Asia of GroupM, was conferred the prestigious e4m Influencer of the Year 2022 award.

In 2016, Raj Nayak, then COO of Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd was conferred the e4m Influencer of the Year award. In 2017, CVL Srinivas, Country Manager, WPP India, and CEO of GroupM South Asia at that time, took home the honour. In 2018, Virendra Gupta, Founder & CEO, Dailyhunt, and Umang Bedi, Co-founder, Dailyhunt, bagged the title in 2018. In 2019, the award was bagged by Sanjay Gupta, Country Manager, Star & Disney India. In 2020, Naveen Tewari, Founder & CEO, InMobi & Glance, was conferred the title.