Meta’s India and Southeast Asia vice president, Sandhya Devanathan, is departing the social media giant to join OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker, as confirmed by TechCrunch.
Devanathan will be based in Singapore and report to OpenAI’s Asia-Pacific managing director, Kiran Mani. Her responsibilities will include overseeing consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia, according to OpenAI.
The executive is leaving Meta after spending more than a decade at the company, which has been the subject of increasing scrutiny regarding online safety and content moderation. A person familiar with the situation indicated that Devanathan was involved in the company's decision-making processes in the region.
Devanathan’s hiring comes shortly after Prabhjeet Singh joined OpenAI as its India head. Singh spent over a decade at Uber, where he led the company's India and South Asia business.
OpenAI has been expanding its presence across the Asia Pacific, establishing offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, and Delhi over the past two years.
Following Devanathan’s departure, Meta’s India managing director, Arun Srinivas, will report directly to Benjamin Joe, the company’s vice president for Asia-Pacific, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
Devanathan joined Meta in 2016 and held several leadership roles, including leading the Asia Pacific gaming business, before being appointed vice president for India and Southeast Asia in June of the previous year.
Meta has faced growing pressure from Indian authorities in recent weeks. This month, the company apologized after Instagram mistakenly restricted a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July. The Indian government subsequently summoned Meta executives, including Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan.
New Delhi has also raised concerns regarding child sexual abuse material on the company's platforms. The government sought an explanation from Meta following a BBC report that alleged Instagram advertisements offered access to such content.
Meta stated in a blog post that it had removed the violating advertisements and accounts. The company rejected suggestions that it knowingly targeted users based on inappropriate interests and noted it removed 160,000 accounts in India over six months based on signals indicating child-exploitative activity.
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