I am an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Canaan Partners. Previously I was the CEO of Yahoo! India R&D and had responsibilities for product engineering for all of Emerging Markets and for several global products and platforms (including image search, search monetization, HotJobs, participation platforms and feed platforms).
I have over 22 years of experience in the internet, enterprise software and wireless infrastructure sectors. Prior to joining Yahoo!, I was involved in buyout activities focused on taking mid-sized software product companies private. Before that, I was the India General Manager and VP of Product Operations with Symantec (formerly VERITAS Software) and was responsible for the turnaround of VERITAS operations in India.
I was earlier a co-founder and CEO of Teltier Technologies, a New Jersey based wireless infrastructure start-up that became the leader in the Presence and Availability Management space and is now part of Cisco.
Further back in time, I managed product development teams at Lucent Technologies both in US and in India. I also setup AT&T’s, and later Lucent’s, R&D organization in India in the mid-90s, at a time when offshore product development was just getting underway.
I started my career with DCM Data Products, in their software R&D group in New Delhi, where I was working on developing UNIX server platforms based in i86 architecture. Later I had a stint, as an early stage employee, with an Apple supported start-up where I learnt how the absence of marketing skills can derail a good product business.
I am passionate about cloud computing, and about making product development succeed in India, both for MNCs as well as for domestic players. I chair the NASSCOM Product Forum, actively mentor startups, and speak frequently on industry issues. I am also a long-standing member of the IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Technical Committee on Software Engineering. I have an Electrical Engineering degree from Delhi College of Engineering.
Sharad Sharma
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