Meta India Head Ajit Mohan Resigns, Joins Rival Snap as APAC President

Ajit Mohan, who served as head of Meta in India, has left the firm to join rival social media company Snap. Mohan has taken up the role of President of APAC business at Snap, the company revealed on Thursday. Mohan joined Facebook in January 2019 as Vice President and Managing Director of its India business. Since then, Facebook underwent several changes including shifting under parent company Meta. During his tenure, Mohan played a crucial role in Meta’s family of apps including in Instagram and WhatsApp, adding over 200 million users in India.

Meta confirmed the exit of its India head on Thursday. “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.

Prior to joining Facebook, Mohan assumed the position of Senior Vice President at Star TV, where he helped launch Hotstar, its own digital streaming service. Mohan later went on to head Hotstar as CEO for four years before eventually joining Facebook in 2019. At Star, he played a key role in localising the content strategy of Hotstar, which included banking on local movies, original shows, and acquiring sports streaming rights to major sporting events in the country.

“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,” added Mendelsohn in her statement.

Snap confirmed in a statement to Gadgets 360 that Mohan will join the company from Meta, as President of Snap’s APAC business. 

Mohan has joined Snap’s executive team and will lead Snap’s businesses in India, Australia and New Zealand, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Korea.

“We believe that Ajit’s leadership will enable us to accelerate our growth across APAC, and we could not be more thrilled to have Ajit joining the Snap team,” Evan Spiegel, Snap CEO said in a prepared statement. 

Mohan is set to join Snap at a tremulous time for the company shadowed by its shares plunging about 25 percent last month after it forecast zero revenue for the current quarter. Mohan would look to overturn the fortunes of Snap, which cited a weakening economy and fierce competition as a reason for its slump in growth.

Snapchat reached 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) in India 2021, and the company has previously partnered platforms like Flipkart and Zomato in the country. The firm says it is looking to target users in the APAC region that comprise approximately 75 percent of smartphone users above the age of 13, who have not yet used the messaging platform.