Snap nabs Meta India's chief Ajit Mohan to grow APAC operations

share on

twitter /
facebook /
linkedin /
- email
- telegram
- whatsapp
- wechat
- pinterest
- line
- snapchat
- reddit

Ajit Mohan, VP and MD at Meta India, is joining Snap to lead the Asia Pacific region as president. Mohan (pictured) confirmed his move in a LinkedIn post, adding that he will be part of the company's executive team.

He will report into COO Jerry Hunter and is responsible for offering in-market leadership, leading cross-functional efforts overseeing local operations, and leading Snap's go-to-market strategy. As president, Asia Pacific, Mohan is responsible for the business in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, and ANZ.

CEO Evan Spiegel said in an internal memo that APAC GM Kathryn Carter and her current APAC sales teams, as well as the India and China sales teams will now report to Mohan, similar to the global structure in the Americas and EMEA.

"Mohan’s leadership will help enable us to accelerate our growth across APAC and we could not be more thrilled to have Mohan joining the Snap team," he added. Spiegel also thanked Carter for her leadership of the APAC business during what he described to be "a turbulent time". "She's done a fantastic job leading the team across various APAC countries, and we're truly grateful for her tremendous contributions," he added.

Meanwhile, succeeding Mohan at Meta India as interim head is Manish Chopra, director and head of partnerships, Reuters said. The social media giant is also expected to work on a transition plan over the next few weeks, with VP for Asia Pacific, Dan Neary, flying to India to host an all-hands meeting, Reuters added quoting an internal message.

Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta's VP, global business group, told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that over the last four years, Mohan has played an important role in shaping and scaling Meta's 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 Mohan's leadership and contribution and wish him the very best for the future," Mendelsohn added.

Mohan joined Meta in 2019 and has been leading the team for nearly four years. In his LinkedIn post, Mohan said he is "grateful to the company for the amazing opportunity to lead its efforts in one of its most important countries". "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," he added. Before Meta, Mohan was with Hotstar as CEO and also worked at Star TV Network and McKinsey.

His departure from Meta comes as the social media company faces a series of regulatory challenges, with PM Narendra Modi's administration tightening laws around big tech firms. Last year, an investigative series by the Wall Street Journal titled "The Facebook Files" also revealed that Meta's services were being used to spread religious hatred in India.

Meanwhile in September, Snap said it was hunting for individuals to take on the president role in APAC and the Americas respectively. This is part of Snap's plan to realign its regional operational leadership. At the same time, Hunter was also promoted to COO effective immediately, leading monetisation efforts across APAC, EMEA and the Americas, as well as its growth, partnerships and content, AR Enterprise, and SMB teams. Alongside this leadership change, Snap also restructured its business into three strategic priorities - community growth, revenue growth and AR - and laid off 20% of its workforce.

Despite the restructure, APAC has been one of its focal points over the years. In June, it appointed Saurabh Dangwal as head of global brands APAC; Dan Heffernan as head of global agency APAC; Igor Lima as head of global brands, tech, APAC; Kelly Chiu as product marketing manager; Amanda Ang as head of public policy East Asia; Kanishk Khanna as director, media partnerships, APAC; and Monisha Singh as recruitment lead, APAC. In January, it brought on board two senior creative leads - Gareth Leeding and Haran Ramachandran - as it solidifies its commitment to creating best-in-class creative campaigns.

Digital Marketing Asia is back for its 10th year! 10 years of exclusive insights, experience sharing and great success stories. Join us for three days of hyper-focused presentation topics across six tracks on 15 - 17 November and connect with 1000+ of the world's brightest minds in the marketing world to learn and upscale from 85+ speakers from the hottest regional and global brands. Click here to register now!

share on