Ajit Mohan will join rival social media company Snap.
New Delhi:
Social media company Meta today announced that its India head, Ajit Mohan, has stepped down to pursue another opportunity. Mr Mohan is going to join rival social media platform Snap, the company announced today.
“Ajit has decided to step down from his role at Meta to pursue another opportunity outside of the company,” Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President of Global Business Group at Meta, said in a statement.
Ajit Mohan joined Facebook India as the managing director in January 2019. During his stay, two of the company’s offerings – WhatsApp and Instagram – added over 200 million users in India.
“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 remain deeply committed to India and have a strong leadership team in place to carry on all our work and partnerships. We are grateful for Ajit’s leadership and contribution and wish him the very best for the future,” Ms Mendelsohn wrote.
Prior to Meta, Mr Mohan served as the chief executive officer of Star India’s video streaming service Hotstar for four years. He was pivotal in convincing the entertainment giant to develop a streaming service named Hotstar. Mr Mohan, along with Uday Shankar, was pivotal in Hotstar’s content strategy, which focused on local movies and series as well as sports streaming. Hotstar became a crown jewel in Disney’s portfolio following the Fox acquisition thanks to the timely bet on internet streaming and cricket.
Responding to an email query by news agency PTI, Snap, which owns social media platform Snapchat, said Mohan will be joining the company in February as president for Asia Pacific Region.
“I’m happy to share that Ajit Mohan will join Snap as our new President, APAC, joining us in February. Ajit comes from Meta where he most recently served as VP & Managing Director of India, and previously held executive roles across the region, including as founding CEO of Disney’s Hotstar,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said.
Snap has increased its efforts in India in recent years, with the goal of introducing a number of customised features. According to Data.ai and SensorTower data, the app doubled its user base in the country to 100 million users in the last three years.
Ajit Mohan will be a member of Snap’s executive team and report to its chief operating officer Jerry Hunter. The regional sales teams, including that of India and China, will report to Mr Mohan.
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