Private equity giant Warburg Pincus just made a very interesting new appointment. SK Sharma, an AI expert, has joined Warburg Pincus as a Senior Advisor, working with the firm’s Technology group.
Sharma was previously Chief Analytics & AI Officer at Universal Music Group, where he led a global team of AI researchers, data scientists and strategists to develop products and services focusing on listener engagement, audience growth and marketing analytics technology.
He has authored four artificial intelligence patents as lead inventor, and was behind patented technology for UMG.
In his new role at Warburg Pincus, Sharma will assist the firm in “identifying, evaluating and supporting new investment opportunities and advise portfolio companies on value creation initiatives with a focus on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)”.
Warburg Pincus LLC has more than $87 billion in assets under management, and more than 220 companies in its active portfolio.
The firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Amsterdam, Beijing, Berlin, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Mauritius, San Francisco, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Singapore.
Warburg Pincus noted today (May 28) that Sharma has “deep expertise in creating and bringing companies through the growth stage and to exit”.
Sharma has served as a co-founder or operating partner for four different companies, three of which were acquired by strategic buyers.
As he explained to MBW on the MBW Podcast in 2022, Sharma grew up in Watts, Los Angeles and graduated with a Ph.D in Chemical Physics and Biophysical Chemistry from Caltech.
He went on to create medical pharmaceuticals, before turning his hand to analyzing markets for the likes of Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.
In 2016, he joined the music business – joining UMG via Ingrooves Music Group.
Dr. Sharma currently serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
“SK will be an invaluable resource to our investment thesis generation and portfolio company value creation.”
Michael Ding, Warburg Pincus
“We are thrilled to welcome SK, who has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation and real-world application, to Warburg Pincus,” said Michael Ding, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus.
“SK will be an invaluable resource to our investment thesis generation and portfolio company value creation.”
“GenAI is creating incredible opportunities, and I look forward to working with the team to identify and evaluate new investments and support value creation for the firm’s impressive portfolio companies.”
SK Sharma
“I am excited to be joining Warburg Pincus, which has been synonymous with growth investing since its start and has an impressive track record in the technology space,” said SK Sharma.
“GenAI is creating incredible opportunities, and I look forward to working with the team to identify and evaluate new investments and support value creation for the firm’s impressive portfolio companies.”
In 2022, on the MBW Podcast, Sharma was asked about what “bemused” him when he first joined the music industry, and “what took [him] aback in the way that the music industry worked, particularly as it pertains to its relationship with technology?”
Sharma explained: “I’ve been incredibly humbled by listening to folks and learning from people. But, as you say, there’s certainly things where you scratch your head and go, ‘Did that really happen? Did someone just say that?’
“I think initially, that was [because of a] lack of contextualization. Now everyone’s talking about machine learning and AI – like everyone’s an expert – but I can tell you back in 2016, it wasn’t a thing. Very few people were talking about this stuff in the music industry outside of Spotify. People were like: ‘Where’s this gonna go? Why would we do any of this stuff? What is this really gonna mean?’
“That was a bit unusual for me, because I was used to being in roles where innovation and R&D drove success and growth. Being a scientist, you’re used to failure; it’s okay to test a theory. It’s the right thing to interrogate a hypothesis and go: ‘Hey, mea culpa, it didn’t work out. Let’s move on to something else.’ Early on in the music industry, I was sort of taken aback sometimes by people going: ‘I don’t fail; I just don’t fail. You don’t ever want to fail!’
“Embracing failure as a natural part of growth, and accepting how you can learn from that and do better, is something I’ve always embraced. I was surprised that was not necessarily an attitude that was embraced by some of the folks I met in the music industry early on.”Music Business Worldwide
