[Update] Sandhya Devanathan Leaves Meta For New Role At OpenAI

Update | August 29, 01:54 AM IST 

Hours after Sandhya Devanathan said that she had stepped down as the India and Southeast Asia vice president of social media giant Meta, it has now emerged that she is joining AI giant OpenAI. 

The ChatGPT maker told Techcrunch that Devanathan, in her new role at OpenAI, will now oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption and partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia. She will reportedly be based out of Singapore and report to OpenAI’s Asia-Pacific managing director, Kiran Mani. 

As per the report, Meta’s India managing director, Arun Srinivas, will now report directly to the company’s vice president for Asia Pacific, Benjamin Joe.

Inc42 has reached out to both Meta and OpenAI for comments on the matter. This story will be updated upon receiving their statement. 

Original | August 28, 05:54 PM IST 

Meta’s India and Southeast Asia vice president Sandhya Devanathan has stepped down after more than a decade at the social media giant. 

In a LinkedIn post, Devanathan said, “After more than a decade at Meta, I’ve made the bittersweet decision to move on to my next adventure.” 

“After a short break, I’m looking forward to my next exciting chapter — will share more on that soon,” she added. 

Devanathan did not disclose her next destination. It is also unclear who will replace her at Meta. 

Devanathan joined Facebook, now Meta, in 2016 as group director for its ecommerce, travel, and financial services businesses in Southeast Asia. She subsequently served as Facebook Singapore’s MD and business head for Vietnam. 

In 2020, she took charge of Meta’s gaming vertical in the Asia-Pacific region, which she described on LinkedIn as one of the company’s five largest business verticals. The company appointed her as its India head and vice president in November 2022, and she assumed the role in January 2023. 

Meta expanded Devanathan’s responsibilities to include Southeast Asia in June 2025. The company appointed Arun Srinivas as its MD and head for India around the same time, with Srinivas reporting to Devanathan. 

Before joining Meta, Devanathan spent almost a decade at Citi and more than six years at Standard Chartered Bank. 

Since February 2026, she has also served as a founding board member of Reliance Enterprise Intelligence Ltd, the enterprise AI joint venture between Meta and Reliance. She is a board observer at Jio Platforms and a member of the advisory board of the College of Integrative Studies at Singapore Management University. 

It is not clear if Devanathan will continue in her positions at Reliance Enterprise Intelligence, Jio Platforms, and Singapore Management University following her departure from Meta. 

Devanathan’s exit comes months after CRED founder Kunal Shah took over as WhatsApp’s global head and stepped away from the fintech unicorn’s day-to-day operations. Meta also invested $900 Mn (about ₹8,550 Cr) in CRED through a mix of primary and secondary transactions. 

Her departure also comes at a time when Meta is facing increasing regulatory scrutiny in India, one of its largest markets. Earlier this month, the Centre sought technical changes from the company to tackle child sexual abuse material, deepfakes, and unlabelled AI-generated content across its platforms. 

Meta subsequently began acting on the government’s concerns following multiple rounds of discussions.

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