This is not just about one person’s growth, it’s about what a company enables when it bets on people. Manohar’s story at ShareChat shows how backing someone beyond their job description, allowing for failure, and expecting contribution across functions can transform both the individual and the organization.

Read on to know about the exciting journey.

From VP, Corp Dev to Co-Founder — can you walk us through your journey at ShareChat and the key milestones along the way?

I joined ShareChat in October 2019 as the first senior hire in the finance function. I was hired as VP investor relations, immediately after Twitter (Now X) led our series D round. Outside the Investor relations team, our finance and legal functions were at a very nascent stage. I volunteered to help set up systems and policies for these functions. Ankush and Farid empowered me to lead these efforts and lay foundations of a strong and scalable finance team.

Soon we launched Moj in July 2020 and embarked on a transformative journey as a company. I got the opportunity to work with Ankush and the Board on multiple fundraisers in 2020 and 2021. This was the first time that I was raising a funding round independently. Ankush trusted me to lead the efforts for ShareChat’s largest ever funding round (With relatively limited prior experience to be honest). On my first work anniversary, I was promoted to CFO role. Within months of taking over as CFO, I had the honor of leading our $500mn funding in April 2021 that catapulted ShareChat into the unicorn club. Subsequently, as the company navigated its journey through various phases of growth, monetization and efficiency, I was entrusted with additional responsibilities including leading the Policy, PR, Admin and IT functions. In late 2023 when Farid and Bhanu decided to step down from their active roles, I got the opportunity to work closely with HR and TA teams and I worked with team leaders to structurally enable tighter collaboration between these teams.

Over all these years, we followed a simple principle “If there is a problem at hand and you can contribute to the solution, just roll up your sleeves and start contributing…every problem is your problem, every win is your win”. I had the tremendous opportunity to learn and build cross functional skills, ranging from procurement and contract negotiation, to press management, employee engagement and at times even system thinking. In April 2025, Ankush said “In the last 5+ years, you have contributed above and beyond your JD. You have operated with the mindset of a founder and delivered impact where needed” and with that I was given the title of co-founder.

I have been very fortunate to get this opportunity to work with ShareChat, to learn and to build a once in a career kind of outcome.

What aspects of ShareChat’s culture and values do you think made it possible for you to grow so much in just five years?

ShareChat prides itself in its meritocracy driven culture. In my 5+ years at ShareChat I have witnessed multiple instances where the weightage given to somebody’s suggestions/proposals is driven by the logic in their arguments and completely independent of their age, experience or pay grade. We empower our employees to go beyond their job descriptions and create impact for their team and stakeholders. We have many colleagues who have taken on diverse roles and succeeded at creating impact. As management, we make extra effort to create an environment of trust which empowers our employees and encourages them to  challenge themselves without being bogged down by the fear of failure.

Personally speaking, it was this culture of empowerment that allowed me to explore beyond the realm of finance and take on mandes for different roles..as varied as HR, Legal and public policy. I knew that the organization will back me up while I am learning news skills. I knew that my manager trusts my intent and that it’s alright if I don't get everything right in the first attempt, as long as I am applying sound logic and taking constructive inputs from the right stakeholders.

Were there any defining moments or challenges where you felt you truly grew as a leader? How did the company support you during those times?

My journey at ShareChat has been full of challenging phases and opportunities to learn and grow as a leader. A couple of those really stand out. The first inflection point in our journey was the rapid expansion phase post the launch of Moj. There was a massive opportunity ahead of us to build the first and largest local short video product. It required us to move fast, attract a unique pool of talent and empower them to own and execute these ambitious plans ... .and the cherry on the top was the fact that we had to do all of this while working remotely. We started hiring experienced AI and ML talent outside India. For a small upstart tech company, based in India, it was a challenge to attract global talent  with a super hot skill set that was in high demand from global tech giants. We managed to attract a set of great Tech leaders by meeting a large number of AI/ML professionals and articulating the possibilities that lay ahead of us. We managed to convince a handful of high impact leaders to buy into our vision and they in turn attracted people from the AI communities in Europe and US. I learned a lot from this experience and grew as a leader. I believe I developed an understanding and appreciation of what motivates people professionally beyond monetary aspects of a job.

Another incident that was one of the toughest challenges of my career and also of ShareChat’s journey as an organization was the effort to turn the business from substantial losses to profitability. The intense competition and a buoyant private funding market during 2020-2022 had led us to grow our user bases by making aggressive investments in technology and marketing. However, the monetization of this user base moved at a much slower pace. Which meant we were burning a substantial amount of money. When capital  flows stopped in mid 2022, we found ourselves in a very tight spot where we had to turn the ship around from a high burn to profitable state. As CFO, I had to help the company build a plan and execute it within reasonable time. The company leadership took this as a collective challenge….we came together as a group to agree on a framework which allowed us to prioritize well. Also, a culture of ownership and decision making by merit of argument enabled us to take some pretty tough decisions and also pull off some really unthinkable levels of tech optimizations. Throughout the process we maintained transparency to the wider org and always took time to explain the logic behind decisions. A culture of collective ownership, transparency and empathy enabled us to stage one of the largest and most successful business turnaround in India’s start-up ecosystem.

What advice would you give to anyone today who wants to chart their path of growth here?

The company empowers employees and encourages them to take bold but calculated, thought through risks. There are multiple examples of employees who found a problem that they could contribute to solving and were give ownership to solve it. I would advise employees to always take a broader view of business beyond their immediate responsibilities and do not hesitate to speak up. If you have strong conviction on a topic, you are welcome to put it out on any forum. I can guarantee that you will get a fair chance to present it and work on it. We take pride in systemically enabling our associates to move across function and grow by owning challenging problem statements. That said, you are expected to do your homework well and back your proposals with logic and data.

Looking ahead, what excites you most about ShareChat’s future — and your role in shaping it?

I joined ShareChat with an ambition to build a solid business that will stand tests of time and become hallmark of India Tech. I think, as a company, we dreamt very big, failed fast, learned a lot and managed to build a business that’s coming of age now. We have just about completed the sustainability marathon and came out as a self sustained, cash positive business. We are now embarking on the next phase of our journey. Micro-drama is fast emerging as the next content format, advertising is beconing more regional, more hyperlocal and Indian consumers (Even in small towns) have slowly started paying for experiences and services that they value. As the country moves towards $5tn GDP mark and beyond, as per capita income rises, as internet penetration inches closer to 1bn user mark, I see a great potential for ShareChat to build on the foundation that we have prepared over the last 5 years. I am very excited to see that we are already seeing green shoots in all produc indicators (be it user count, time spent or retention) and the advertiser community has started embracing regional advertising more and more which is leading to a return of healthy reveue growth rate. We will soon start working towards IPO which is every CFO’s dream. I am excited to soon start working on preparing the company and our systems to be ready for listing and life as a listed company.