OpenAI Hires Sandhya Devanathan to Lead Southeast Asia, Australia

OpenAI has hired a longtime Meta Platforms executive to lead Southeast Asia and Australia as it aims to tap growth across markets that are home to more than 600 million people.

In a newly created role, Sandhya Devanathan will be the company’s senior-most leader in the region. She will be in charge of overseeing consumer growth, enterprise adoption and partnerships, operations and engagement with regulators. She begins in October.

She posted on LinkedIn Friday that she was leaving Meta, without disclosing further details. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed her appointment.

OpenAI is in a race against rivals such as Anthropic and Google to capture users, with populous markets across Asia holding significant promise. Southeast Asia is home to two of OpenAI’s top 10 markets globally by ChatGPT users — Indonesia and the Philippines, according to the company.

Devanathan will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, managing director for Asia-Pacific, whom OpenAI hired in March.

She joined Meta in 2016 and most recently served as vice president for India and Southeast Asia, according to her LinkedIn profile. Earlier she led Meta’s gaming business in the Asia-Pacific region, her profile shows.

OpenAI has in the past two years opened offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and New Delhi. It has expanded its leadership team across the region to include Mani and Prabhjeet Singh, whom it hired from Uber Technologies in June to lead its India business.