Sandhya Devanathan, Meta’s vice president for India and Southeast Asia, is leaving the company to join OpenAI, TechCrunch reported on August 28, 2026. She will be based in Singapore and report to OpenAI’s Asia-Pacific managing director, Kiran Mani.
In her new role, Devanathan will oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption and partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia. Her appointment follows Prabhjeet Singh’s recent hire as OpenAI’s India head — Singh previously spent more than a decade at Uber leading its India and South Asia business.
Devanathan joined Meta in 2016 and held multiple leadership positions over more than a decade, including leading its Asia Pacific gaming business, before being named vice president for India and Southeast Asia in June 2025. Following her departure, Meta’s India managing director, Arun Srinivas, will report directly to Benjamin Joe, the company’s vice president for Asia-Pacific.
Her exit comes as Meta faces mounting pressure from Indian authorities. Earlier in August 2026, 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, over the incident.
Indian authorities have also raised concerns about child sexual abuse material on Meta’s platforms. Following a BBC report that found Instagram advertisements allegedly offering access to such content, the government sought an explanation from the company. Meta said it removed the violating ads and accounts, denied knowingly targeting such advertisements based on inappropriate interests, and noted it had removed 160,000 accounts in India over six months based on signals indicating child-exploitative activity.
OpenAI has been expanding across the Asia-Pacific region, opening offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, and Delhi over the past two years. Devanathan’s hire suggests the company is continuing to build out its regional leadership as it pursues growth in the area.
Source: TechCrunch