A banker turned tech maven: Meet Sandhya Devanathan, Meta India head

Many in Meta India are eager to know more about Sandhya Devanathan, who takes over Meta India’s head and VP. Though she has the responsibility of managing the gaming segment for the platform for Asia-Pacific (APAC), she has not interacted with the India team much.

A graduate from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) in New Delhi, Devanathan does not have the standard credentials of a tech professional. Instead, she spent the early years of her working life in the banking industry. Her longest stint has been with Citi, where she spent over nine years. Standard Chartered Bank was the other banking firm where she spent over six years.

Devanathan’s career pivot from banking to tech occurred in 2015, when she joined Meta.

In one of the blogs on Meta Career, a portal for career programmes at Meta, she said on her joining Meta: “When it came to banking, I knew the industry really well. I knew about fintech, but Meta and the digital consumer tech landscape were brand new to me. I faced a steep learning curve managing teams that function very differently from traditional companies. Banking can be a very hierarchical industry. At Meta, you lead with purpose and passion, empowering your people and supporting them all while achieving shared goals. Having a shared vision, purpose, and sense of community is very important here.”

At Meta, Devanathan helped build out the Singapore and Vietnam businesses and teams as well as Meta’s e-commerce initiatives in Southeast Asia. In 2020, she moved to lead gaming for APAC, which is one of the largest verticals for Meta globally.

A look at her LinkedIn profile tells you a bit about her style of work and what person she is. People in the know say that Devanathan is a people’s person. One of the comments on her LinkedIn profile is from Sriram Jagannathan, who is the VP global payment at Delivery Hero. “Unique intelligence, unbelievable ability to bond with people, a strong ambition and relentless execution skills makes her a terrific hire for anyone who wants to sit back and get results. When she was barely out of college, she was selected for the Citigroup Chairman’s award for her excellence in managing a new portal launch involving coordination with over 100 staff across countries and time zones.”

One of the areas which Devanathan appears to be uber-focussed is on equal representation of women in the workforce and working mothers. In the blog, she goes on to talk about one of the key learnings as the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, “One area in particular is related to working mothers. I see this as a moment, and [a] tremendous opportunity, for companies and leaders to really evaluate how they’re showing up for their teams. How are we supporting new moms? How are we giving people space to balance these new demands?”

She is the Executive Sponsor for Women@APAC at Meta as well as the global lead for Play Forward, a global Meta initiative to improve diversity representation in the gaming industry.

Devanathan takes over the India operations after the previous incumbent, Ajit Mohan, resigned to join social media company Snap Inc. She also joins at a time when Meta is expecting India to be an important contributor to its revenue, as it has bet on the creator economy with its Instagram and Reel platforms and it is also making WhatsApp the platform for commerce/shopping in India. At least part of her role will require some adroit relationship management with the government, with foreign social media platforms coming under increasing scrutiny.

She will transition to her new role on January 1, 2023, reporting to Dan Neary, vice-president, Meta APAC, and will be a part of the APAC leadership team. She will move back to India to lead its operation and strategy. She has a total experience of 22 years.

Devanathan will be the second woman to head the social networking platform. In 2010, Kirthiga Reddy was the first employee of the social media platform in India. Reddy had expanded the company’s footprint in India and was at the helm when Facebook introduced the controversial “Free Basics” programme, which it subsequently had to withdraw. She stepped down in 2016 and moved to the US.