OpenAI continues to expand the Asia-Pacific management team with the recent appointment of Sandhya Devanathan, a senior executive from Meta, for the South-East Asian and Australian markets. At a time when this personnel adjustment is taking place, Meta is under increased regulatory pressure in India over content audits and platform security issues.
South-East Asia and Australia
OpenAI states that Devanathan will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, Managing Director, Asia Pacific Region. She will be responsible for consumer growth, business adoption, partnerships, regulatory communication and day-to-day operations in South-East Asia and Australia.
Just a few days ago, OpenAI appointed former Uber executive Prabhjeet Singh as head of Indian operations. With the fall of the two appointments, the localization of OpenAI in Asia and the Pacific has accelerated.
The Asia Pacific Office continues to expand
Over the past two years, OpenAI has established offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Delhi to continuously expand its direct operational capacity in the Asia-Pacific region. The addition of a new regional head of office this time shows that the company is moving from a single location to a more complete regional management system.
Devanathan worked in Meta for more than 10 years. She joined the company in 2016, was in charge of the Asia-Pacific game business and was promoted to Vice President of India and South-East Asia last June.
Meta's under greater pressure in India.
According to sources, Devanathan was involved in the decision-making of Meta in India. After her departure, Meta Arun Srinivas, Managing Director of the Indian Board of Directors, will report directly to Benjamin Joe, Vice-President of the Asia-Pacific Company.
Recently, Meta has received successive regulatory attention in India. Earlier this month, Instagram mistakenly restricted a post released by Indian Prime Minister Modi in July, and Meta subsequently apologized. The Indian Government then summoned a number of corporate executives, including Joel Kaplan, Global Affairs Manager.
In addition to the content review dispute, the Government of India expressed concern about the content of child sexual abuse on the Meta platform. Last month, the Government of India requested Meta to provide clarification following a BBC report that there was a suspected advertisement on Instagram that provided access to relevant content.