Meta's India chief Sandhya Devanathan joins OpenAI as regulatory pressure mounts in New Delhi

Sandhya Devanathan, Meta's vice-president for India and Southeast Asia, is leaving after more than a decade at the Facebook parent to join OpenAI. The ChatGPT maker confirmed the appointment to TechCrunch, saying Devanathan will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, managing director for Asia-Pacific. Her remit covers user growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory relations and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia.

The hire comes days after OpenAI named Prabhjeet Singh to lead its India operations. Singh spent more than ten years at Uber, most recently heading the ride-hailing firm's business in India and South Asia. The two appointments reflect a faster geographic push: in the past two years OpenAI has opened offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Delhi, aiming to plant a physical presence near the fastest-growing markets outside the United States.

At Meta, Arun Srinivas, managing director for India, will now report directly to Benjamin Joe, vice-president for Asia-Pacific, flattening the regional hierarchy. Devanathan joined Meta in 2016, ran its gaming business across Asia-Pacific, and was promoted early last year to the vice-president role that put her at the centre of sensitive negotiations with local authorities.

Her departure coincides with intensifying scrutiny from New Delhi. Earlier this month Meta apologised after Instagram mistakenly restricted a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July, prompting the government to summon senior executives including Joel Kaplan, the company's global policy chief. Separately, a BBC investigation revealed Instagram ads that allegedly offered access to child sexual abuse material; New Delhi demanded an explanation. Meta said it had removed the violating ads and accounts, denied any intentional targeting, and noted it had deleted 160 thousand accounts in India over six months based on signals of child-exploitation activity.

Recruiting Devanathan — an executive who knows the internal dynamics of dealing with the Indian government — signals that OpenAI understands the route to Asian markets runs through regulatory navigation as much as through larger models. While Meta contends with the fallout of tighter oversight, its new rival is building the compliance and relationship layer that will let it operate with relative freedom when its next products arrive.