Anthropic · Microsoft · OpenAI · Google · India · Meta · Rest of World
OpenAI’s first hire in India, Pragya Mishra, came from Truecaller
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OpenAI’s Asia-Pacific director, Kiran Mani, came from India’s largest media and entertainment conglomerate, JioStar, in March.
Key facts
- Last month, Meta’s India and Southeast Asia vice president, Sandhya Devanathan, left the company after a decade to join OpenAI as vice president for Southeast Asia and Australia
- In new markets, companies need leaders who can focus on partnerships, policy, and business development, Deepali Vyas, global head of data and AI executive search at talent advisory firm ZRG Partners
- Silicon Valley’s artificial intelligence talent wars are now playing out in Asia
- OpenAI’s first hire in India, Pragya Mishra, came from Truecaller
Summary
Silicon Valley’s artificial intelligence talent wars are now playing out in Asia. OpenAI and Anthropic are poaching top talent from U.S. tech giants including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to build teams in countries like India and Singapore to sell their products and strengthen engagement with policymakers. Last month, Meta’s India and Southeast Asia vice president, Sandhya Devanathan, left the company after a decade to join OpenAI as vice president for Southeast Asia and Australia. “The number of executives in India who’ve run a country-level P&L for a global tech company, negotiated with Indian regulators, and built enterprise trust at scale is small, maybe a few hundred people across all of Big Tech India,” Arjun Jaggi, an applied AI researcher and executive adviser to Fortune 500 companies, told Rest of World. OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to requests for interviews with their recent hires, or to questions about their Asia-Pacific hiring strategy.