It is not just Twitter that has seen several (and sudden) vacancies both in its top management and in its workforce this month – Meta has too. After Meta’s India country head Ajit Mohan quit the company to join Snap, WhatsApp’s India head, Abhijit Bose, has followed in his footsteps and has tendered his resignation. Meta confirmed Bose’s departure from the company on Tuesday.
Bose will, of course, serve his notice period over the next few days before biding his departure from the company and the position that he had ascended to four years ago – as the first country head for WhatsApp in any country. Prior to his stint with WhatsApp, he had been involved in the founding of PoS payments solution provider Ezetap, which was acquired by Razorpay this August.
Meta had brought in Bose to take WhatsApp’s payment unit to greater heights, alongside driving deeper penetration of the app in the Indian market. Bose ends his term after making India the largest market of WhatsApp (in terms of users) and releasing WhatsApp Pay to millions of users in the South Asian market.
“It’s been 4 years from since I joined as WhatsApp’s first Country Head in India, and I’m so proud of what we have built. I’m also really excited about my next gig. I believe that the next 5 years will be transformational for India — with many of our current pre-IPO companies very quickly becoming the global leaders in their respective sectors. After a small break, I plan to rejoin the entrepreneurial world; you’ll see announcements on that shortly!” Bose wrote in a post on LinkedIn
“I want to thank Abhijit Bose for his tremendous contributions as our first Head of WhatsApp in India. His entrepreneurial drive helped our team deliver new services that have benefited millions of people and businesses. There is so much more WhatsApp can do for India and we’re excited to continue helping advance India’s digital transformation,” said Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp.
Bose is not the sole high-ranking executive to bid adieu to Meta on Tuesday, and Rajiv Aggarwal, Meta India’s public policy director, stepped down from his position in the company as well. Aggarwal, who joined Meta after leaving Uber last year, will serve his notice period over the next few days, while his position will be taken up by Shivnath Thukral, the current director of public policy at WhatsApp India. This will make Thukral in charge of the public policies for all three of Meta-owned social media platforms – Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
“Over the last year, he has played an important role in leading our policy-led initiatives in areas such as user-safety, privacy and scaling up programs like GOAL to drive digital inclusion in the country. He has also been leading proactive engagement with critical policy and regulatory stakeholders. We are grateful for his contributions and wish him very best for the future,” said Manish Chopra, Director, Partnerships, India – Meta.
