Meta India head Sandhya Devanathan to join OpenAI in regional role | Company News

Meta’s vice-president and India head Sandhya Devanathan has decided to leave the company after a decade and is set to join OpenAI as vice-president for Southeast Asia and Australia.

In her new role at OpenAI, Devanathan will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, the company’s managing director for the Asia-Pacific region.

In the newly created role, Devanathan will be responsible for consumer growth, enterprise adoption and partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia.

Devanathan, who joined Meta in 2016, was appointed India head in 2023. With over 25 years of experience, she has worked across banking, payments and technology companies.

“She joined Meta in 2016 and helped build our Singapore and Vietnam businesses and teams, as well as the e-commerce initiatives in Southeast Asia. In 2020, she moved to lead Gaming for APAC, one of our largest global verticals,” Meta had said while announcing her appointment as India head.

In a LinkedIn post on Friday announcing her departure, Devanathan said she had joined Meta in 2016 when the company had just 300 employees in Singapore.

“The landscape looked so different in 2016- everyone was talking about digital transformation. And we were right in the midst of it- helping startups, companies, creators and the ecosystem grow across the region while delivering great experiences for our hundreds of millions of our users,” Devanathan said.

Commenting on her departure, Benjamin Joe, vice-president of Asia Pacific at Meta, said Devanathan’s “dedication, passion and drive” had made a lasting impact.

Arun Srinivas, managing director and country head at Meta, who previously reported to Devanathan, will now report directly to Joe.