Meta's India Chief Sandhya Devanathan Departs For OpenAI

SINGAPORE —

Sandhya Devanathan, Meta's vice president for India and Southeast Asia, is leaving the company to join OpenAI, OpenAI told TechCrunch. She will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, OpenAI's managing director for the Asia-Pacific region, overseeing consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia, according to OpenAI.

Devanathan joined Meta in 2016 and spent more than a decade there, according to TechCrunch. She led the company's Asia-Pacific gaming business before being named vice president for India and Southeast Asia in June of last year. A person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that Devanathan had been involved in Meta's decision-making process in India. After she leaves, Meta's India managing director, Arun Srinivas, will report directly to Benjamin Joe, the company's vice president for Asia-Pacific, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Her move follows the hiring of Prabhjeet Singh, who spent more than a decade at Uber leading its India and South Asia business, as OpenAI's India head, TechCrunch reported. OpenAI has opened offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Delhi over the past two years as it builds out its presence across the region.

Meta's India Headaches

Devanathan's exit comes as Meta faces rising pressure from Indian authorities. The company apologized this month after Instagram mistakenly restricted a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India in July, TechCrunch reported. The Indian government summoned Meta executives, including chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan, over the incident.

New Delhi has also pressed Meta over child sexual abuse material on its platforms. Last month, the government asked the company to explain a BBC report that found Instagram ads allegedly offering access to such content, according to TechCrunch. Meta said in a blog post that it removed the violating ads and accounts and disputed any suggestion that it had knowingly targeted users based on inappropriate interests. The company said it had removed 160,000 accounts in India over six months based on signs of child-exploitative activity.

OpenAI's Own India Push

OpenAI, for its part, is leaning harder into the Indian market. The company has rolled out ads on ChatGPT for free users and subscribers on its low-cost $4 (399 rupee) monthly plan in India, one of its largest and most active markets, CNBC reported. OpenAI told CNBC the ads will be clearly labeled and shown below chatbot responses, and that it will not show ads to users who are, or are predicted to be, under 18. Self-serve ads are set to launch in India on September 4, according to CNBC. OpenAI is aiming for a 2027 public listing and faces pressure to justify an $852 billion valuation, CNBC reported, as it competes with Anthropic and Google for both consumers and enterprise customers.