Facebook appoints Ajit Mohan to head India Operations
Focus on aligning teams and driving Facebook’s overall strategy in India
Facebook Inc. has appointed Ajit Mohan as Managing Director and Vice-President, Facebook India. He joins Facebook from Hotstar, the streaming platform launched by Star India, where he was Chief Executive Officer. Ajit will join Facebook early next year.
Ajit will be responsible for Facebook’s India strategy and for driving the company’s continued investment in India. He will lead a senior leadership team in India that will strengthen Facebook’s relationships with people, businesses, and government and intensify the company’s efforts to help people in India connect with the people and things they care about most.
In this newly created role of Managing Director for India, a VP-level role, one of the most important responsibilities for this person will be aligning teams and driving Facebook’s overall strategy in India. This is a new structure for Facebook India of having a senior leader reporting into Menlo Park and not Asia Pacific.
“India is one of the largest and most strategically important countries for Facebook. As we think about what it will take to achieve our mission of bringing people together and building community, we know that investment in India is critical. Ajit’s depth of experience will help us to continue to have a positive impact in India across communities, organizations, businesses and with policy makers,” said David Fischer, Vice-President of Business and Marketing Partnerships, Facebook Inc.
Ajit Mohan is an alumnus of McKinsey and Company’s New York office where he worked with media companies around the globe as well as served as a Fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute, where he focused on India’s rapid urbanization. Since 2008, when he returned to India, he worked at the ministry of urban development, the Planning Commission and the International Centre for Research on Women. Switching from private sector to public and back to private sector, Mohan then began his stint with Hotstar as the president and head in late 2015 and was promoted as the CEO in 2016.
Kochi born Ajit Mohan’s father served for 16 years in the Indian Air Force in Signals Intelligence.
He is a graduate of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I am delighted to take on the mantle of shaping Facebook’s charter in India. It is a unique opportunity to shape the agenda of a company that has brought the world closer together in one of the most exciting markets in the world. I look forward to championing India in Facebook and working with stakeholders across the spectrum to help build deep and meaningful communities across the country,” said Ajit Mohan.
