Meta has named Sandhya Devanathan as its New India Head

By: WE Staff | Friday, 18 November 2022

Following Ajit Mohan's resignation as Meta's previous India chief, the social media behemoth announced that Sandhya Devanathan had been designated the country's leader. Meta owns all of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Marne Levine, the company's chief business officer, expressed his satisfaction at Devanathan's appointment as the new leader of Meta's activities in India.

"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," Marne Levine said.

In 2016, Sandhya Devanathan joined Meta. She helped set up the businesses and teams in Vietnam and Singapore. She additionally helped Meta with its Southeast Asian e-commerce endeavours.

Devanathan has worked in banking, payments, and technology for 22 years. Devanathan, according to Meta, "moved to lead gaming for APAC (Asia-Pacific region) in 2020, which is one of Meta's largest verticals globally. She also brings a passion for developing women leaders in business and is the Executive Sponsor for Women@APAC at Meta as well as the global lead for Play Forward, a global Meta initiative to improve diversity representation in the gaming industry.

Devanathan earned a B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from Andhra University (1994–1998), then went on to earn an MBA from Delhi University's Faculty of Management Studies (1998-2000). She visited the University of Oxford in 2014 to take a leadership course.

She has worked with Standard Chartered and Citibank in the past. She was employed by Citibank from May 2000 to December 2009 in a variety of capacities, then from December 2009 to December 2015, she was employed by Standard Chartered.

Devanathan now serves on the boards of several organisations as well. These organisations include the Singapore Management University, the Pepper Financial Services Group, the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society, the National Library Board of Singapore, and the Ministry of Information and Communications (Singapore).