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Meta's India and Southeast Asia vice president, Sandhya Devanathan, is leaving the social media giant to join OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker told TechCrunch. Devanathan will be based in Singapore and report to OpenAI's Asia-Pacific managing director, Kiran Mani. She will oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption and partnerships, regulatory engagement and operations across Southeast Asia and Australia, OpenAI said. The executive is leaving Meta after more than a decade at the company, which has been the subject of growing scrutiny over issues such as online safety and content moderation. Devanathan was involved in the company's decision process in the country, a person familiar with the matter said. Devanathan's appointment comes days after Prabhjeet Singh joined OpenAI as its India head. Singh had spent more than a decade at Uber, where he led its India and South Asia business. OpenAI has been expanding its presence across the Asia Pacific, opening offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Delhi over the past two years. 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, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Devanathan joined Meta in 2016 and held several leadership roles at the company, including leading its Asia Pacific gaming business, before being appointed vice president for India and Southeast Asia in June last year. Meta has faced growing pressure from Indian authorities in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the company apologized after Instagram mistakenly restricted a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July. The Indian government summoned Meta executives including its chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, over the incident. New Delhi has also raised concerns over child sexual abuse material on the company's platforms. Last month, the Indian government sought an explanation from the company after a BBC report found Instagram advertisements that allegedly offered access to such content. Meta said in a blog post at the time that it had removed violating ads and accounts, and rejected suggestions that it knowingly targeted such advertisements at users based on inappropriate interests. The company also noted that it had removed 160,000 accounts in India over six months based on signals indicating child-exploitative activity. Topics AI , India , Meta , OpenAI , people moves , Social When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Jagmeet Singh Reporter Jagmeet covers startups, tech policy-related updates, and all other major tech-centric developments from India for TechCrunch. He previously worked as a principal correspondent at NDTV. You can contact or verify outreach from Jagmeet by emailing mail@journalistjagmeet.com . View Bio October 13 - 15 San Francisco Don't miss out . The startup community will gather to answer a pivotal question: How do you build sustainably in the AI era? REGISTER NOW Most Popular Fitbit founders launch Luffu Link, an LTE health and safety band Aisha Malik Hugging Face reportedly in talks to be acquired for $13B Rebecca Bellan Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash Anthony Ha Two years after launch, Walmart's Flipkart is closing in on India's quick-commerce leaders Jagmeet Singh Inherent, founded by DeepMind alumni, says its AI ‘teammate' just outperformed Anthropic and OpenAI at replicating research Anna Heim Michael Polansky is training an AI model on skin that’s still alive Connie Loizos How AI accounting startup Rillet raised $100M and became a unicorn in 48 hours Dominic-Madori Davis