Paytm boss takes out time to work on personal development during the weekends. Vijay Shekhar Sharma even shares his learnings with his colleagues at Paytm, India Today Tech has learned from people familiar with the development.
- Vijay Shekhar Sharma spends his weekends on self-education.
- He takes up online courses of his interest, including those on business, leadership and more.
- He even likes to share his learnings with his colleagues and encourages them to learn too.
Paytm has been one good example of successful businesses in recent years, so much so that the company is eyeing India’s record IPO later this year. One would think that the rapid developments with the firm would keep its chief way too busy for working on personal growth. This, however, is far from the truth.
Even with his busy schedule, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma finds time to work on personal development. The chief executive officer of Paytm does so through online courses on business, leadership and organisations.
The self-education takes place on the weekends, as Sharma looks for knowledge on topics of interest through YouTube and other online platforms. Most recently, Sharma enrolled with MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), India Today has learnt from sources.
MIT OCW is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that shares all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online for free. These courses are available to everyone and range from topics of Business, Engineering, Energy to Life Sciences and much more.
Sharma picks up different courses from MIT OCW on his weekends. His topics of interest include business, leadership and organisations. He also likes to read about specific entrepreneurial strategies, such as the talent-driven scaling of a company.
“From notes on leadership to further reading upon talent-driven scaling of a company, Sharma takes to unconventional methods to learn more about building a business that truly matters,” people familiar with the development told India Today Tech.
Not many people know that Sharma comes from a Hindi medium school, and he picked up English from books and YouTube while studying at the prestigious Delhi College of Engineering (now Delhi Institute of Technology).
The Paytm CEO does not like to keep this part of his life a secret. Instead, he has been known to share his new learnings of the week with his colleagues at Paytm, often encouraging them to learn more through such courses.
Paytm has emerged as the top player in India’s transition to a digital economy. Though the company was established in Noida in 2010, it shot to fame in November 2016 with India’s demonetisation drive. The company has been at the forefront of fintech solutions since then.
Other than being a platform for digital payments, Paytm now offers a wide variety of services to its customers. It even became the first non-government entity to provide a vaccine booking option to users recently. A new feature on the app now lets users book their Covid-19 vaccine appointments right through Paytm. You can read how it works here.
Though the biggest update is the firm’s preparation for its stock market debut. In the build-up to possibly India’s largest-ever IPO, Paytm sent an “offer for sale” to its staff earlier this month, asking them to decide whether they want to sell their shares. Paytm’s board is reportedly finalising the draft red herring prospectus for the IPO.
https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/technology/news/story/billionaire-and-a-successful-entrepreneur-paytm-ceo-now-spends-weekend-learning-business-lessons-from-mit-1815403-2021-06-16
