--- description: Vijay Shekhar Sharma is on the TIME 100 2017 list. Nandan Nilekani wrote about the entrepreneur. title: Vijay Shekhar Sharma by Nandan Nilekani: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt69705b48581f6b3f/6988c341a988ca70966bbca3/time-100-2017-vijay-shekhar-sharma.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 19, 2017 # Vijay Shekhar Sharma by Nandan Nilekani  Photograph by Kuni Takahashi—Bloomberg/Getty Images In November, when India’s government unexpectedly scrapped 86% of the country’s currency notes, Vijay Shekhar Sharma seized the moment. As Indians scrambled to exchange the banned notes for new currency, Paytm, Sharma’s digital payments startup, went on a promotional spree. With a flurry of ads, Sharma invited Indians to start using Paytm’s digital wallet to pay for everyday goods and services. It worked. By the end of 2016, Paytm had 177 million users, compared with 122 million at the beginning of the year. Vijay had catapulted himself into a nation’s consciousness. It was a masterstroke by a small-town boy who studied in a Hindi medium school before conquering the country’s Anglophone startup world. Now backed by Jack Ma of Alibaba, an investor in Paytm, Vijay is branching out into the more heavily regulated world of banking, with plans to offer digital accounts. He will face new challenges from deep-pocketed and more-experienced competitors. But knowing Vijay, he will win the next time around too. _Nilekani is a co-founder of the IT firm Infosys_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742761/vijay-shekhar-sharma/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742761/vijay-shekhar-sharma/"},"headline":"Vijay Shekhar Sharma","datePublished":"2017-04-19T18:00:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:25.379Z","description":"Vijay Shekhar Sharma is on the TIME 100 2017 list. Nandan Nilekani wrote about the entrepreneur.","url":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742761/vijay-shekhar-sharma/","keywords":["TIME 100"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt69705b48581f6b3f/6988c341a988ca70966bbca3/time-100-2017-vijay-shekhar-sharma.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt69705b48581f6b3f/6988c341a988ca70966bbca3/time-100-2017-vijay-shekhar-sharma.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742761/vijay-shekhar-sharma/","name":"Vijay Shekhar Sharma"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"See All the TIME 100 Honorees in One Minute","description":"The TIME 100 honorees include actors, musicians, politicians, business leaders, activists and scientists, and together make a portrait of influence in 2017.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zZCdrcRA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-04-20T10:30:45.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zZCdrcRA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742761/vijay-shekhar-sharma/","duration":"PT56S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742761/vijay-shekhar-sharma/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```