Ajit Mohan, India head of Meta, quits to join rival Snap as president of its APAC business, two people with knowledge of the matter said. At Snap, he will work with the company in its regional businesses, they said. ( Updated at 8:50 p.m. India standard time: Mohan has confirmed the move in a LinkedIn post.)

Mohan joined Meta, then Facebook in January 2019 as VP and MD of the India business. During his tenure at the firm, Facebook's family of apps-Including Instagram and WhatsApp added over 300 million users in India, made a series of ambitious investments in the country, including cutting a $5.7 billion check to Indian telecom giant Jio Platforms, and ramped up the commerce engine of WhatsApp.

The company also came up with the idea of using India as a testing ground to create a portfolio of services such as Reels. Facebook doubled its revenue in India, reaching more than 70%, to $2.1 billion, during the financial year which ended in March.

During his tenure, Meta saw massive changes in India-it boasts of being the biggest market by users. One of its top Facebook executives in India, Ankhi Das, quit the firm in 2020 after allegations that she interfered with how the company had enforced its hate-speech policy in the country. The company has since improved its dialogue with the government bodies.

"When I accepted this role, I shared with you that our mission in India would be to become a valuable ally to India and to help fuel its economic and social transformation. This is precisely what we have been able to do over the last four years," Mohan wrote in an internal post accessed by TechCrunch.

Alumnus McKinsey Mohan worked his way to stardom at Star, where he played an instrumental role in getting the entertainment conglomerate to launch a streaming service called Hotstar.

Along with Uday Shankar, Mohan also played a key role in the content strategy of Hotstar, looking at local movies and shows and sports streaming. The timely bet on online streaming and cricket cemented Hotstar's place as a crown jewel in Disney's portfolio after the Fox acquisition.

Ajit has decided to leave Meta and pursue another opportunity outside of the company," Nicola Mendelsohn, vice president of Global Business Group at Meta, said in a statement.

"He has been instrumental in shaping and scaling our India operations to serve tens of millions of Indian businesses, partners, and people over the last four years. We are committed to India and have a strong leadership team in place to carry on all our work and partnerships. We are grateful for Ajit's leadership and contribution and wish him the very best for the future."

Manish Chopra, director and head of partnerships at Meta India, would act as the interim head for the company's operations in the country, a Meta spokesperson said.

Over the past few years, Snap has upped its focus on India and many other Asian markets and has really pushed to roll out a range of localized features. The app quadrupled its user base to 100 million users in India in the past three years, Data.ai and Sensor Tower report.