Telling stories is Sharad Kharé’s passion and his business

We turned the tables and this is his story:

A BC boy, Kharé grew up in Burnaby, and while he struggled in school, he went on to successful stints working in banking and the automotive industry.

“But I always had this passion to be in media… whether it was television, performing arts or public speaking, hosting events,” he says.

He was in his early 30s in 2006 when he began hosting an online show for which he would interview artists or bands or chefs. When the global financial crisis hit two years later and he lost his automotive job, his wife, Nisha Kharé, encouraged him to turn his hobby into a business. Two years after that, Kharé Communications was creating internal corporate videos for the likes of Microsoft.

It was again thanks to his wife’s encouragement that he applied for RRU’s Master of Arts in Professional Communication program. He says he took some convincing to sign up, and plenty more during the program.

“I was scared of academia because I felt like it was something I could never do well with,” he says. “I think I had a lot of imposter syndrome around it. I was very poor academically growing up…. I just probably wasn't taking the things that I was really interested in. I was doing things that I thought I should do to make a living.

“But: “I loved it. It changed my perspective of what academia could be. It changed my confidence level to know that I wasn't this dumb kid that I thought I was.”

Since he graduated in 2013, the Kharés have built Human Biography, a media production company in Vancouver with a focus on iconic people and brands that creates feature documentaries, private, personalized video biographies, and content for organizations — including TED, UN Women, RBC and The David Lynch Foundation. They even produce legacy videos for people nearing the end of their lives, and both he and Nisha host or moderate public events.

“My passion came first and the business became a necessity out of that,” Kharé says. 

That passion is storytelling, going deep with interview subjects, including business leaders such as Lululemon founder Chip Wilson and media mogul Arianna Huffington.

“I want to know the legacy of a person,” he explains. “I want to know what they stand for, and if they were to leave this planet today, how would they be remembered.

“I'm always interested in how honest and truthful they are about their life with me. No sugarcoating, no PR statements. It's very raw, the interviews that we do… We're just having a conversation, and that's what we show.

“I am interested in learning… how they come to where they are in life.”

For someone who laments his own struggles in school, Kharé is no stranger to learning, and notes, “There’s an enormous amount to learn just from talking to people… and I think that was the only way that I learned.”

Kharé, who recently turned 50, also says he learned from his cohort at Royal Roads, although he admits that, amid mid-career professionals with perhaps more credentials than he had, “I was very insecure about who I was in that room.”

But those classmates propped him up when he struggled, and helped propel him to completing assignments and the program. 

“I loved it,” he says. “It changed my perspective of what academia could be. It changed my confidence level to know that I wasn't this dumb kid that I thought I was.

“Thank goodness for Royal Roads, because it shaped my career.”