WSJ names media and marketing bureau chief

Wall Street Journal business editor Dennis Berman sent out the following message on Thursday:

Congratulations to Amol Sharma, who today becomes the new bureau chief for the Media and Marketing group here in New York.

These industries are in the midst of deep transformation, and Amol is uniquely suited to lead the great group of reporters who are covering the change at both MAM and  CMO Today.

Amol has been the group’s Deputy Bureau Chief for the better part of two years. In a player-coach role, he has helped edit the group’s coverage of TV, advertising and publishing while covering big media companies such as Time Warner, Viacom, CBS and Fox.

Amol joined the Journal in late 2005 to cover telecom and technology in New York, writing about big M&A deals and the rise of the iPhone and Android.

From 2009 to 2013 he was a senior politics and business reporter based in India, where he profiled now-Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chronicled Google’s battle with the government over free speech, and followed a bag of cucumbers from a village to a city for a Walmart story.

Amol grew up in Webster, Mass and went to Tufts University. He’s got a wicked jump shot and plays a Gibson semi-hollow-body guitar but spends most of his time focused on his three-month-old daughter.

Congratulations, Amol.