Image of Ayshwarya Sharma
Jury

Ayshwarya Sharma
Brand Strategy Partner, Creative Strategist, Team Lead at Apollo 11, Innovation Team Leo Burnett India
Leo Burnett India

MUMBAI, INDIA // I love commas, they give you the space to add just a little more, so bear with me.

You can put me in the bucket of a nerd, a creative, a strategist, an SDG champion, a musician, a project lead. You get why I like the commas. It helps me describe the tiny parts, that together, make a whole 'me'. I've dabbled in a lot, worked with masters in their craft, lived in survival mode - all to do one thing, create solutions that help people.

Today I lead a multi-disciplinary team called Apollo 11, that incubates ideas of the future. Technologists, product designers, storytellers who come from various schools of thought, but have one thing in common- being human. We partner and learn from the best in class to create HumanKind solutions at Leo Burnett India for brands such as PepsiCo Lay’s, Adidas, P&G, Heineken, Twitter, Google, Roposo, Jeep and P&G.. just to name a few.

The last few years have been a rollercoaster ride, where Apollo has taken off creating a path of its own – bringing ideas to life using data, and impacting lives through technology.

The first trigger comes from The Missing Chapter for P&G. It uses the power of the right platforms to start a movement, a call to arms asking for a chapter on menstruation to be included in curriculum, and stop the cycle of girls dropping out from school. The campaign won the Sustainable Development Goals Grand Prix at Cannes, following to win Grand Prix at Epica, The Glass Award for Change at Spikes a Graphite D&AD.. ( I can add more commas with the metals and the award shows).

The success from The Missing Chapter re-manifested my belief, that now more than ever, is the time to create sustainable change, and technology can be a great enabler at reaching estranged communities and solving for them at a pace, faster than any other system.

That led to developing Lay’s Smart Farm powered by CropIn – A SAAS platform that uses satellite imagery and remote sensing to build an early warning system. Backed by the robust contract farming partnership of PepsiCo Lay’s, this idea democratises technology and helps farmers fight climate change. This Business Transformation idea has shed light on India’s sustainability initiatives across PepsiCo Global, apart from raking in 6 metals at Cannes 2023.

I truly believe that you are only as good as your last piece of work. Which is what has led us to initiate The Water Sustainability Score, a first of its kind dynamic report card that creates a transparency between brands and people, empowering them with the knowledge of how water positive our brands and organisations truly are. This initiative not only rates, but also helps brands with end-to-end solutions that help them offset their score and take stronger actions to becoming more water positive.

I believe the power of this idea is transformational, as it not only makes data open sourced, but channelises brands and people as mediums.

All of this has re-manifested my belief that only being perpetually unsatisfied, brings out epic work!