Vivek Sharma

Vivek Sharma helps boards and executive teams drive growth through AI, data science, and digital transformation.

Vivek is a Senior Advisor for AI at Advent, a global private equity firm with $90 billion in assets under management, and serves on the boards of Kaiser Permanente and JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU). He is also an adjunct professor of data science at the University of Southern California and a member of Caltech’s Innovation Science & Technology (IST) advisory council. An accomplished author, Vivek has written two books—C-SPARK and WIREFRAMED—along with multiple articles for Harvard Business Review and the National Association of Corporate Directors, including “It’s Time for Boards to Take AI Seriously,” “Which Skills Will Survive the AI Onslaught?,” “6 Ways AI Could Disrupt Your Business,” and “Shift Your Focus to Strategic AI Risks.”

As CEO and co-founder of InStride, a Los Angeles-based EdTech company launched in 2019, Vivek scaled it into a 200-person profitable company. Under his four years of leadership, InStride partnered with 41 major corporations, saved employees $630 million in potential student debt, and earned a spot on Fortune’s “Global Impact 20” list. Before InStride, Vivek spent six years at The Walt Disney Company as Senior Vice President of Digital Guest Experience & E-commerce, overseeing a $10 billion online business and serving 150 million guests annually across Disney’s global theme parks, resorts, cruises, restaurants, and retail operations. Earlier in his career, Vivek held leadership roles at Yahoo for four years—serving as General Manager of Yahoo Mail & Messenger and Vice President of Yahoo Search—and spent eight years as an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company.

Vivek graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and holds an MBA from INSEAD, France.