E Kumar Sharma is the Deputy Editor, FinancialExpress.com a part of the
The IndianExpress Group. A
Chevening scholar, a CV Starr Fellow at Upenn and a recipient of the
Polestar Award, Kumar has over the past 26 years authored several special reports, cover stories and lead articles in print, television and digital mediums including content for video and podcasts. His interests span across economy, finance, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, biotechnology, microfinance, education, retail, IT, family-led businesses, management apart from ESG and sustainability.
A masters in economics with focus on econometrics from the University of Hyderabad, a central university, where he topped the entrance and won a scholarship, Kumar has written earlier for
Business Today, The India Today Group, The Wire, Fortune India, in addition to a stint with the BBC Television as a reporter out of London. At Business Today, for nearly a decade, he led the coverage on business schools, put out series of articles in pharma and healthcare, women entrepreneurship, emerging trends in management, executive health, covered the complete journey of microfinance in India – from the early experiments in the mid-1990s with methodologies getting defined, fund-flows opening up, the Andhra crisis (this state of the
sector report in fact also refers to an article by Kumar), newer regulations, IPOs, newer models to survive and finally some microfinance institutions taking the avatar of small finance banks.
Kumar also tracked the early trends in the Indian ecommerce journey. He has marked his presence on social networking platforms with some weighty connects that include some well known founders and CEOs from India Inc., leading academicians and analysts. But then, he sees shoe- leather reporting as his dharma. He has on several occasions helped his author friends with research inputs for their books. He is an avid reader and a keen listener not just because people and sources need to be listened to but for the simple reason that in a hyper- specialised world, there is always much to learn and transmit.