November 18 2022: Meta (formerly Facebook)  has appointed Sandhya Devanathan as the new head of its India  businessas Vice President Meta India effective January 1 2023.
She  joined the firm in 2016 and helped build the company’s Singapore and Vietnam businesses.  In 2020, Ms Devanathan moved to lead the company’s gaming efforts in the Asia-Pacific region.
In her career spanning over two decades, she spent  nearly 10 years at Citi in various roles. Following this, she joined Standard Chartered Bank where she spent another six years . Her last role at Standard Chartered was of managing director for retail banking and payment products in Singapore.
With over half a billion Indians using Meta services, India is Meta’s  largest market by users.
“India is at the forefront of digital adoption and Meta has launched many of our top products, such as Reels and Business Messaging, in India first. We are proud to have recently launched JioMart on WhatsApp, which is our first end-to-end shopping experience in India,” said Marne Levine, chief business officer of Meta, in a statement.
The new appointment comes at a time when Meta has seen several key departures in India in recent weeks. Ajit Mohan, the former head of Meta India,  left Meta to  join rival Snap as the president of the firm’s Asia-Pacific business.WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose and Meta India’s Public Policy head Rajiv Aggarwal  also left revently. Earlier this month, Meta laid off 11,000 people worldwide, including India.