Shekhar Sharma joins Interaction as national director

Sharma used to be general manager, Internet and telecom, at India Today Group Digital

Shekhar Sharma has joined Interaction, the digital arm of GroupM, as national director, search marketing. Based in New Delhi, Sharma will report to Arvind Mahendru, managing partner, Interaction, GroupM.

Sharma used to be general manager, Internet and telecom, at India Today Group Digital.

Commenting on his role at Interaction, Sharma says, “I will be involved in increasing the search business and bringing global search marketing practices to India, apart from planning and implementing search marketing campaigns.”

Shekhar Sharma

Interaction is forming a special team to provide search marketing solutions for the digital needs of GroupM agencies such as Mindshare, Maxus and Mediaedge:cia. According to Sharma, “Currently, advertisers are spending 30 per cent of their online advertising budget on search marketing and this is expected to reach 40-45 per cent by 2010.”

Sharma has 14 years of experience in radio, events, telecom and online media, including four years at Times FM. He was deputy manager, online sales, Indiatimes.com, from 1998 to 2002. During his two year stint as chief manager, Mindscape (the business events unit of Indiatimes), he was responsible for creating a revenue model for getting global management gurus to India. He has also worked as business head for the Indiatimes SMS service, 8888.

Sharma joined India Today Group Digital in January 2006 and launched the telecom business for the group.

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