Meta India head Ajit Mohan quits to join Snap
Ajit Mohan, the India director for Facebook’s parent company Meta, has resigned from his post with immediate effect, almost four years after joining the digital giant. According to information, Mohan has joined rival Snap as the president of its Asia Pacific division.
The change was verified by Meta. Ajit has chosen to leave Meta in order to explore a different opportunity outside of the organisation, according to Nicola Mendelsohn, vice president of the global business group at Meta. “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 are grateful for Ajit’s leadership and contribution and wish him the very best for the future.”
In the interim, Manish Chopra, director and head of partnerships at Meta India, will assume responsibility.
In January 2019, Mohan became a vice president and managing director of Meta’s India business, which at the time was known as Facebook. During his tenure, the corporation invested strategically in a number of Indian companies, including acquiring a nearly 10% share in telecom behemoth Reliance Jio. Around 300 million new users joined Meta’s family of apps at that time, including WhatsApp and Instagram, while Facebook utilised India to test and launch several important services, including Reels, its TikTok-competing short video service. In FY’22, Facebook’s net profit in India increased by 132% year over year to Rs 297 crore.
After Ankhi Das, Facebook’s former India policy chief was accused of interfering with the company’s efforts to implement its hate-speech policy in the nation, the social media behemoth under him was also questioned about its content moderation rules.
During his time at Star, Mohan was also a major influence behind the launch of the streaming service Hotstar.
He joins Snap as the firm seeks to increase its footprint there and roll out a number of locally tailored offerings. In India, the site reached the 100 million user mark back in October of the previous year. In order to monetize its platform, Snap has also announced a number of alliances with regional firms, including one with Flipkart to create augmented reality (AR) experiences for the e-commerce firm.
