Meta India head Ajit Mohan has stepped from his position after four years and has agreed to join rival company Snap Inc. He will lead Snap’s Asia Pacific business. Mohan joined Meta, then Facebook, in January 2019 as a VP and MD of the India business. Meanwhile, Meta India director and head of partnerships, Manish Chopra will take over the position in an interim capacity.
“After almost 4 years leading Meta (Facebook) in India, I am stepping down from my role. I am grateful to the company for the amazing opportunity to lead its efforts in one of its most important countries. I am absolutely proud of the work the team and I have done to create impact for people, creators and businesses around the country,” Mohan wrote in his LinkedIn post adding that he is going to lead the Asia Pacific region for Snap and be a part of the company’s executive team.
During Mohan’s stint at Meta, the family’s three major apps, including WhatsApp and Instagram, added over 300 million users in India, a crucial market for the tech giant and the largest in terms of users. Meta has earlier said that it conceptualized and used India as the test market to build a range of services, including Reels. Before Meta, Ajit Mohan played an instrumental role in getting the entertainment conglomerate, Star, to launch a streaming service, called Hotstar.
“Ajit has decided to step down from his role at Meta to pursue another opportunity outside of the company,” Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President of Global Business Group at Meta, said in a statement. “Over the last four years, he has played an important role in shaping and scaling our India operations so they can serve many millions of Indian businesses, partners and people. We remain deeply committed to India and have a strong leadership team in place to carry on all our work and partnerships. We are grateful for Ajit’s leadership and contribution and wish him the very best for the future.”
Meanwhile, Snapchat is pushing hard to capitalize on the huge potential user base in India. Over the past few years, the platform has added around 100 million users in the country, according to data from Data.ai and Sensor Tower.
