Meta is losing one of its senior executives in Asia as the company faces growing pressure from Indian authorities over safety, content moderation and how its platforms operate in the country.
Sandhya Devanathan, Meta’s vice president for India and Southeast Asia, is leaving the company after more than 10 years to join OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. She will take up a new senior role covering Southeast Asia and Australia, where she will work on business growth, partnerships, regulation and operations.
The timing of the move is interesting. Meta is dealing with several issues in India at the same time, while OpenAI is rapidly expanding its business across Asia. Devanathan’s move therefore shows not only how competition for senior technology executives is changing, but also how important India and the wider Asian market have become in the race for artificial intelligence.
Who Is Sandhya Devanathan?
Sandhya Devanathan has been one of Meta’s important executives in Asia for several years. She joined the company in 2016 and held different leadership positions, including leading Meta’s gaming business in the Asia Pacific region.
She became Meta’s vice president for India and Southeast Asia in June 2025. In that position, she was responsible for a very important part of Meta’s business because India is one of the company’s largest and most active markets.
Her role involved more than simply growing Facebook and Instagram users. She was also involved in the company’s work with businesses, partners and government officials in the region.
That makes her move to OpenAI particularly important.
Devanathan Is Joining OpenAI
Devanathan will join OpenAI and be based in Singapore. She will report to Kiran Mani, OpenAI’s Asia Pacific managing director.
Her new job will cover Southeast Asia and Australia. OpenAI said she will oversee consumer growth, business adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across the region.
In simple terms, her job will be to help OpenAI grow its business and relationships across a large and important part of the world.
She will also work with businesses, governments and other organisations as OpenAI tries to expand the use of its AI products.
This is important because OpenAI is no longer simply trying to make ChatGPT popular with individual users. The company is also trying to get businesses and institutions to use its technology on a much larger scale.
OpenAI Is Growing Quickly Across Asia
Devanathan’s appointment comes at a time when OpenAI is increasing its presence across Asia.
The company has opened offices in several major cities, including Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Delhi over the past two years. It has also been increasing its focus on businesses and partnerships in the region.
India is particularly important to OpenAI.
The company has a huge user base in the country, with more than 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users reported earlier this year. OpenAI has also announced plans to introduce advertising to some ChatGPT users in India, showing how important the country has become to its business strategy.
OpenAI has also been building relationships with Indian companies. For example, the company partnered with Infosys to bring its AI tools into the Indian IT company’s business services.
Just days before Devanathan’s appointment was announced, Prabhjeet Singh also joined OpenAI as its India head. Singh previously spent more than a decade at Uber, where he led its India and South Asia business.
The two appointments show that OpenAI is putting experienced business leaders in place as it expands across the region.
Why Is Meta Facing More Pressure in India?
While OpenAI is expanding, Meta is dealing with increasing scrutiny from Indian authorities.
India has become a very important market for Facebook and Instagram, but the size of the market also means that problems on Meta’s platforms can attract significant attention from regulators and government officials.
One recent issue involved Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Instagram mistakenly restricted one of Modi’s posts in July. Meta later apologised for the mistake, and Indian authorities summoned Meta executives, including the company’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, over the incident.
The situation showed how even a technical or moderation mistake on a major platform can quickly become a serious issue when it involves a major political figure.
But the concerns facing Meta in India go beyond one post.
Child Safety Is Another Major Problem
Indian authorities have also raised concerns about child safety on Meta’s platforms.
Last month, the Indian government asked Meta to explain how advertisements that allegedly offered access to child sexual abuse material were able to appear on Instagram. The request followed a BBC investigation into the issue.
Meta said it had removed the violating advertisements and accounts. The company also rejected the suggestion that it knowingly targeted such advertisements at users based on inappropriate interests.
Meta said it had removed 160,000 accounts in India over a six-month period based on signals showing possible child-exploitative activity.
The issue is especially serious because governments around the world are putting more pressure on social media companies to protect children.
Meta is therefore dealing with a problem that goes beyond India. Governments in many countries are demanding stronger systems to detect harmful content and protect young users.
India Is Becoming More Important to the Global Tech Industry
India is no longer simply a large market where technology companies sell their products.
It has become one of the most important countries in the global technology industry.
The country has hundreds of millions of internet users, a large technology workforce and a fast-growing digital economy. Companies such as Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI all have strong reasons to invest more heavily in the country.
This creates an interesting situation for companies like Meta and OpenAI.
They need to grow their businesses while also working closely with Indian regulators. They have to understand local laws, local users and local concerns.
That makes experienced executives who understand the market extremely valuable.
What Does Devanathan’s Move Mean for Meta?
For Meta, losing a senior executive after more than a decade is significant.
However, it would be wrong to assume that her departure automatically means Meta is in trouble or that she left because of the regulatory pressure in India.
There is no public evidence showing that the scrutiny from Indian authorities caused her decision to leave. The available information simply shows that she is moving to a major new role at OpenAI while Meta is facing increasing scrutiny in India.
Meta has also already put a replacement structure in place.
Following Devanathan’s departure, Meta’s India managing director, Arun Srinivas, will report directly to Benjamin Joe, the company’s vice president for Asia Pacific.
So Meta is not leaving India or reducing its operations in the country.
Instead, the company is adjusting its leadership structure while continuing to operate in one of its most important markets.
What Does This Mean for OpenAI?
For OpenAI, the appointment could be much more strategic.
Devanathan has years of experience dealing with businesses, regulators and consumers across India and Southeast Asia. Those skills could be useful as OpenAI tries to move beyond ChatGPT’s popularity and build a much larger business across Asia.
AI companies increasingly need more than good technology.
They need relationships with governments, businesses, schools, developers and other organisations. They also need people who understand local markets and can help the company deal with regulation.
Devanathan’s new responsibilities appear designed around exactly those needs.
Her role will cover consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations. That means OpenAI is putting a senior executive in a position that touches almost every part of its expansion across Southeast Asia and Australia.
Meta and OpenAI Are Now Competing for More Than AI Users
There is another interesting side to this story.
Meta and OpenAI are not competing in exactly the same way, but their businesses increasingly overlap in the AI industry.
Meta is developing its own AI products and has invested heavily in artificial intelligence. OpenAI is trying to make ChatGPT a major platform for consumers, businesses and developers.
Both companies therefore need talented people who can help them grow.
This means competition for senior executives is becoming part of the wider AI race.
A company can have a powerful AI model, but it still needs people who understand how to sell that technology, build partnerships and work with regulators.
That is especially true in large markets such as India.
India Could Become a Major AI Battleground
The battle between technology companies in India is likely to become even more intense.
OpenAI is expanding its presence. Meta is investing heavily in AI. Google has its Gemini products, while Microsoft and other companies are also competing for businesses and users.
At the same time, Indian regulators are becoming more active in deciding how technology companies should operate.
This means companies cannot simply focus on building products.
They also need to understand regulation, safety and public expectations.
For OpenAI, hiring executives with experience in these areas could become increasingly important as it expands.
What Happens to Meta’s India Business Now?
Meta’s business in India is not expected to stop because one senior executive is leaving.
Facebook and Instagram remain widely used in the country, and Meta has strong relationships with businesses and creators.
The bigger question is whether Meta can manage the growing pressure from regulators while continuing to grow its platforms.
The company will need to improve its content moderation systems and deal with concerns around child safety. It will also need to avoid mistakes that can create political problems, especially when those mistakes involve major public figures.
At the same time, Meta is spending heavily on AI and trying to make its AI products more useful to billions of people.
That is a lot for one company to manage.
The Bottom Line
Sandhya Devanathan’s move from Meta to OpenAI is more than a simple executive job change.
She is leaving Meta after more than a decade and moving into a major leadership role at OpenAI, where she will help oversee growth, partnerships, business adoption, regulatory work and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia.
The timing is also important.
Meta is facing growing scrutiny in India over issues including content moderation, online safety and child protection. The company has already had to respond to government concerns over an Instagram post involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi and allegations involving harmful advertisements on Instagram.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is expanding quickly across Asia and strengthening its leadership in important markets such as India, Singapore, Australia and Southeast Asia.
The move therefore highlights something bigger about the technology industry. As artificial intelligence becomes more important, companies are competing not only over AI models, products and users, but also over the people who know how to build businesses, manage partnerships and navigate difficult markets.
For Meta, the challenge now is to maintain its strong position in India while dealing with increasing government pressure. For OpenAI, the opportunity is to use experienced leaders like Devanathan to turn the huge interest in ChatGPT and AI into a much bigger business across Asia.
The competition between the two companies is likely to become even more interesting as both continue to expand their influence in the region.