Meta regional executive Sandhya Devanathan joins OpenAI amid India expansion

Meta regional executive Sandhya Devanathan joins OpenAI amid India expansion

OpenAI has hired senior Meta executive Sandhya Devanathan to oversee its business across Southeast Asia and Australia as the ChatGPT developer expands its presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Devanathan, who served as Meta’s vice-president for India and Southeast Asia, will be based in Singapore and report to OpenAI’s Asia-Pacific managing director Kiran Mani. Her responsibilities will include consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and regional operations.

The move ends a decade-long career at Meta for Devanathan and comes as OpenAI builds a larger leadership team across Asia. The company has opened offices in cities including Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, and Delhi, and recently appointed former Uber executive Prabhjeet Singh to lead its India operations.

Her departure also comes amid heightened scrutiny of Meta in India. Indian authorities have questioned the company over content moderation and online safety issues, including an incident in which Instagram mistakenly restricted a post from India's prime minister Narendra Modi. Meta later apologised.

The company has separately faced questions over harmful material advertised or distributed through its platforms. Meta has said it removes accounts and advertisements that breach its rules and has rejected suggestions that it knowingly directed inappropriate advertisements towards users.