Facebook-parent Meta’s India head, Ajit Mohan, ended his four-year stint at the social media giant abruptly to become the Asia-Pacific head of rival Snap.
“When I took on this role, my objective was to build a team and a company that would be a valuable ally to India and play a useful role in fuelling its economic and social transformation. This is exactly what we have managed to do in the last four years,” Mohan said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday night, confirming his departure.
“Am also excited to share that I am going to lead the Asia Pacific region for Snap and be a part of the company's executive team,” Mohan added.
The news comes at a time when Meta faces challenges including women abandoning its network due to safety and privacy concerns, nudity content, app design complexity, language barriers and diminishing appeal among people seeking video content.
Mohan’s exit left Meta’s employees in shock.
“This has come as a huge surprise internally,” a Meta India employee told DH on condition of anonymity.
Facebook's growth began plateauing last year, when it added a few million users in the space of six months in the country of about 1.4 billion people, significantly lagging sister apps WhatsApp and Instagram, Reuters reported in July, citing Meta’s own research.
Mohan, who joined Meta in January 2019, had served as the founding chief executive officer of Disney’s streaming platform Hotstar for four years before joining the social media giant. Before his stint at Hotstar, he was also associated with the Star TV Network in senior roles.
Meta acknowledged Mohan’s efforts in leading its operations in the world’s second-most populous country that accounts for the highest number of users across its platforms Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
“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,” said Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President, Global Business Group, Meta. “We remain deeply committed to India and have a strong leadership team in place to carry on all our work and partnerships.”
Manish Chopra, the director and head of partnerships at Meta India, will take over as interim head, another Meta spokesperson told DH.
NEW ROLE
Mohan’s new employer hopes to use his expertise to expand its reach in the region.
"We believe that Ajit’s leadership will enable us to accelerate our growth across APAC, and we could not be more thrilled to have Ajit joining the Snap team" Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said on Thursday, adding that Mohan will report to its chief operating officer, Jerry Hunter.
“Ajit will lead our India, Australia & New Zealand, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea businesses. Ajit will provide in-market leadership, lead cross-functional efforts across the region, oversee local operations, and lead our go-to-market strategy,” CEO Spiegel told Snap employees in a memo. DH has seen a copy of the memo.
Snapchat has grown fast in India, hitting 100 million monthly active users one year ago, with partnerships with local platforms such as Flipkart and Zomato.
This week, it shared data on the high engagement levels in India across content, creators, and augmented reality. For instance, Discover, its in-app content tab featuring select partners, had over 140 million Indian Snapchatters watch a show in 2022.
“As we look to the future, the APAC region contains approximately 75% of the total addressable markets of 13+ smartphone users who do not yet use Snapchat,” the spokeswoman said.