Umang Bedi to join Facebook as India MD

Bedi will take over from Kirthiga Reddy, who will be returning to US to take on a new role at company's headquarters at Menlo Park

Social networking giant Facebook on Tuesday said it has appointed former Adobe executive Umang Bedi as managing director of its India operations.

Bedi, whose appointment is effective July, will lead in building and maintaining strategic relationships with top clients and regional agencies in the country, Facebook said in a statement.

He will take over from Kirthiga Reddy, who will be returning to the US to take on a new role at the company's headquarters at Menlo Park in August.

Bedi comes to Facebook with close to two decades of leadership experience covering sales, marketing and partnerships.

He was the managing director of the South Asia region at Adobe.

"India is known for its great talent pool and we are really pleased to have Umang Bedi, a proven business executive to lead our business in India. I also want to wish Kirthiga the very best in her new global role," Facebook Vice-president Asia Pacific Dan Neary said.

India is the largest market for Facebook outside the US with close to 150 million monthly active users.

"We see significant opportunities to help Indian business – large and small – deliver against their business objectives in the mobile world," Neary said.

Bedi said, "It's a promising opportunity to participate in India's digital growth, and I can't think of a better place to be at."

An engineering graduate from University of Pune, Bedi is an alumni of Harvard Business School.

Reddy will join Facebook's Global Accounts team at Menlo Park, where she will manage a set of global brands. She will also lead the emerging markets efforts globally for the global accounts team, which manages Facebook's relationships with the world's largest global advertisers.

"After six years in India building our operations and business, it's hard to leave a team I now call family. As I look ahead, I am excited about how well positioned our business is, to grow from strength to strength with Umang's leadership," she said.