OpenAI poaches Meta India and Southeast Asia chief as AI battle intensifies in Asia

OpenAI has hired Meta’s India and Southeast Asia vice president, Sandhya Devanathan, in a move that underscores the intensifying race for AI leadership in Asia and comes as Meta faces mounting regulatory pressure in India. Devanathan will join OpenAI in Singapore and help drive growth, partnerships, enterprise adoption and government engagement across Southeast Asia and Australia.

The appointment lands at a strategically important moment for both companies. OpenAI is accelerating its regional expansion with new leadership and offices across the Asia-Pacific, while Meta is dealing with a sharper spotlight from Indian authorities over safety, moderation and platform misuse.

What happened, and why does it matter?

OpenAI has brought in a senior Meta executive to strengthen its Asia-Pacific push at a time when India has become one of the most important battlegrounds for global AI companies. Sandhya Devanathan, who led Meta’s India and Southeast Asia operations, is leaving after more than a decade at the social media company to take on a broader regional role at the ChatGPT maker.

The hire is significant for three reasons. First, it gives OpenAI a leader with deep experience in one of the world’s largest digital markets. Second, it signals that OpenAI is moving beyond product launches and into the harder work of enterprise, policy and local partnerships. Third, it arrives as Meta’s business in India is under growing public and government scrutiny.

Who is Sandhya Devanathan, and what will she do at OpenAI?

Sandhya Devanathan is a longtime Meta executive who most recently served as vice president for India and Southeast Asia. At OpenAI, she will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, the company’s Asia-Pacific managing director.

Her remit is broad and reflects how OpenAI is thinking about regional scale. According to the company, she will oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia.

A decade-long Meta career

Devanathan joined Meta in 2016 and worked across multiple leadership roles. Before taking on the India and Southeast Asia portfolio, she led the company’s Asia-Pacific gaming business, giving her experience in both consumer growth and regional business development.

Her departure is a notable loss for Meta because she was involved in decision-making on the company’s India strategy, according to a person familiar with the matter.

OpenAI’s move brings in a senior operator with regional experience across consumer platforms, partnerships and business expansion, as the company prepares for a more complex push across Asia-Pacific.

Why is OpenAI expanding so aggressively in Asia-Pacific?

OpenAI is expanding in Asia-Pacific because the region combines huge user populations, fast-growing enterprise demand and increasingly active AI policy debates. In the past two years, the company has opened offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Delhi as it tries to turn ChatGPT’s global attention into durable local business.

The hiring of senior regional leaders is part of that effort. OpenAI recently named Prabhjeet Singh as its India head, another sign that the company is building country-specific leadership to manage sales, policy and ecosystem relationships in markets where AI adoption is expected to accelerate quickly.

For OpenAI, the challenge is no longer simply awareness. It is about converting interest into contracts, partnerships and regulatory trust. That requires executives who understand both corporate buyers and government expectations.

How does this affect Meta in India?

Meta now has to absorb another senior leadership change at a time when it is already defending its platforms before Indian authorities. Following Devanathan’s exit, Arun Srinivas, Meta’s India managing director, will report directly to Benjamin Joe, the company’s vice president for Asia-Pacific.

The reporting change suggests a recalibration of oversight as Meta continues to manage one of its most important international markets under close scrutiny. India is central to Meta’s user base and advertising business, but it has also become a more demanding regulatory environment.

Meta has recently been criticized over multiple issues, including moderation decisions and the handling of harmful content. That backdrop makes leadership continuity especially important.

What is driving the scrutiny from Indian authorities?

Indian officials have raised concerns about several content and safety issues on Meta’s platforms. Earlier this month, the company apologized after Instagram wrongly restricted a post from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July. The Indian government then summoned Meta executives, including chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan, to discuss the matter.

Separately, New Delhi has also pushed Meta to explain how child sexual abuse material appeared on its platforms. A BBC investigation last month reported Instagram ads that allegedly promoted access to such content, prompting the government to seek answers from the company.

Meta said it had removed violating ads and accounts and rejected the suggestion that it knowingly targeted users with inappropriate content based on their interests. The company also said it had removed 160,000 accounts in India over a six-month period after detecting signals of child-exploitative activity.

How is the leadership shuffle linked to OpenAI’s India strategy?

OpenAI’s latest hire shows that India is becoming central to its global ambitions. The company is building a local leadership bench while also expanding its physical presence in Delhi, a move that reflects the importance of both policy engagement and customer development in the market.

India is attractive for several reasons: it has a vast consumer internet base, a large developer community, a fast-growing enterprise sector and an active government that is increasingly involved in technology regulation. For an AI company, that combination creates both opportunity and complexity.

By hiring executives with experience in major consumer-tech platforms, OpenAI appears to be betting that local relationships and operational know-how will matter as much as model quality.

What this says about the AI competition in India

India has moved from a promising growth market to a strategic priority in the global AI race. The country offers scale, influence and a regulatory environment that can shape how products are rolled out elsewhere. That makes senior hires like Devanathan and Singh more than routine appointments; they are part of a broader contest for market access and credibility.

OpenAI and Meta are approaching the region from different angles. OpenAI is trying to become the default AI layer for consumers and businesses. Meta is trying to protect and deepen a large existing platform empire that depends on trust, engagement and regulatory tolerance.

The result is a talent market where experienced executives are in high demand. Leaders who can speak to regulators, work with enterprise buyers and understand local digital behavior are becoming as valuable as engineers and product managers.

Why senior regional hires matter in AI

Senior hires matter because AI deployment is no longer only a technical problem. It is also a distribution problem, a policy problem and an enterprise sales problem. Companies need people who can handle all three at once.

• Consumer growth: converting awareness into daily usage.
• Enterprise adoption: building commercial relationships with large organizations.
• Regulatory engagement: navigating government scrutiny and policy changes.
• Partnerships: working with local firms, developers and institutions.

How serious is Meta’s regulatory challenge in India?

Meta’s challenge in India is serious because it now spans both public perception and formal government engagement. A mistaken restriction on a post by the Indian prime minister would be sensitive in almost any market, but in India it is especially consequential because it touches national politics, platform reliability and foreign company oversight.

The child safety concerns are even more difficult. Allegations involving exploitative material place pressure on any platform to demonstrate that moderation systems are not just reactive but effective at scale. For Meta, that means defending its systems while trying to restore trust with policymakers and users.

Leadership changes alone will not solve those problems, but they can affect how quickly and convincingly the company responds. A new reporting line for India’s managing director suggests Meta is trying to keep tighter control over regional operations.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Devanathan played a role in Meta’s India decision-making, making her exit especially notable as the company faces a more difficult operating environment.

Timeline: the key moves behind the story

The leadership changes at OpenAI and Meta have unfolded quickly, but they fit into a larger pattern of regional expansion and regulatory tension.

What happens next?

OpenAI will likely lean on Devanathan’s experience to sharpen its go-to-market strategy across Southeast Asia and Australia, while also building relationships with regulators and enterprises. Her presence in Singapore positions the company close to one of its major regional hubs and within reach of multiple fast-growing markets.

Meta, meanwhile, will need to stabilize its India leadership structure while answering more scrutiny from regulators and the public. The company’s response to content enforcement, political moderation and child safety will remain under close watch.

For both companies, the bigger story is that India and the wider Asia-Pacific region are no longer side markets. They are becoming central to how global AI and platform companies grow, govern themselves and compete for influence.

Bottom line

OpenAI’s recruitment of Sandhya Devanathan is more than a high-profile executive transfer. It is a sign that the AI industry’s next major contest will be fought not just in labs and product launches, but in regional offices, government meetings and enterprise sales conversations across Asia.

At the same time, Meta’s latest leadership shift in India shows how pressure on big platforms can reshape talent flows. As scrutiny rises, the executives who understand both growth and governance are becoming the most sought-after assets in tech.