Following numerous high-profile departures in the overseas market, tech giant Meta has appointed Sandhya Devanathan as the new head of India, effective from January 1, 2023. 

The Facebook parent company said on Thursday that Devanathan joined the firm in 2016, building the firm’s Singapore and Vietnam businesses. Devanathan was then appointed as the head and VP of Meta India. 

In 2020, the new India head moved to lead Meta’s gaming efforts in the Asia-Pacific region.

In her new role, Devanathan will report to Meta Asia-Pacific’s Vice President, Dan Neary. The new reporting hierarchy is reportedly a shift for the company, which had earlier witnessed Indian executives report to the U.S. leadership directly.

Notably, in 2019, Meta (then Facebook) created a new organisational structure for the India unit and delinked it from the APAC region. This meant that the India unit functional heads were reporting to the country managing director who, in turn, reported directly to the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park in the United States.

Meta in a statement said, “Devanathan will focus on bringing the organization’s business and revenue priorities together to serve its partners and clients, while continuing to support the long term growth of Meta’s business and commitment to India.” 

The American tech behemoth identifies India as one of its largest markets in terms of user base, with over half a billion Indians using Meta’s services. 

The company’s family apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp—growing fastest in India over the recent years—have boarded millions of users. It is followed by a series of huge investments in the country, which includes a $5.7 billion check to Indian firm Jio Platforms to ramp up the commerce engine of messenger WhatsApp.

Meta’s Chief Business Officer, Marne Levine, said, “I’m pleased to welcome Sandhya as our new leader for India. Sandhya has a proven track record of scaling businesses, building exceptional and inclusive teams, driving product innovation and building strong partnerships. We are thrilled to have her lead Meta’s continued growth in India.”

Advocate of Women Leadership

With over 22 years of being a global business leader, Sandhya Devanathan has an international career in payments, banking, and technology, and holds an MBA from Delhi University‘s Faculty of Management Studies. Devanathan spent around ten years at Citi, following which she had stints at Chartered Bank for six years as the managing director for payment products and retail banking in the Singapore region. 

Moreover, she holds an engineering degree from Andhra University, along with completing a course in leadership from University’s Saïd Business School in 2014. She is a strong advocate of women leadership and aims to promote diversity at the workplace. 

Devanathan has a track record of scaling businesses and building exceptional teams to drive product innovation. Furthermore, she is the executive sponsor for Women@APAC at Meta and the global lead for a global Meta initiative called ‘Play Forward’, established to improve diversity in the gaming industry. 

Amidst high-profile exits

What’s more is that the new appointment comes along with several key departures in India at Meta in recent weeks. Meta India’s former head Ajit Mohan left the company late last month, joining hands with its rival ‘Snap’. He would be appointed as the president of the younger company’s business in Asia-Pacific. 

Earlier this week, Abhijit Bose, India Head at WhatsApp and Rajiv Aggarwal, Public Policy Head at Meta India stepped down from their respective roles. 

These key exits come along with the largest single layoff phase that was announced on 9 November when CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Meta will be sacking 11,000 of its employees, freezing all hiring at least until March 2023. 

Zuckerberg also shared the company’s decision in a blog post: “At the start of Covid-19, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.”