Ex Snapdeal honcho Anand Chandrasekaran to join Facebook: WSJ

He had quit Snapdeal in May to start his own venture; will take global leadership role at Facebook

Anand Chandrasekaran, who as chief product officer of e-commerce firm Snapdeal pushed its mobile strategy is joining social networking giant Facebook to help develop strategies for its messenger app.

The soft-spoken affable Chandrasekaran quit Snapdeal in May to start his own venture. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal first reported that he would take a global leadership role "working on strategies and partnerships for Facebook's billion-user-strong texting service"

Facebook has been aggressive on promoting its messenger app to users globally, hoping users turn as addictive on the main platform, which will help it monetize customers through e-commerce transactions. It has over one billion global users and expects to grow in markets such as India.

Prior to Snapdeal, Chandrasekaran was the chief product officer at Bharti Airtel, where he worked on its mobile products. Chandrasekaran, who was brought in from Yahoo in the US had earlier co-founded mobile applications software firm Aeroprise, which was sold to BMC Software.