WhatsApp India Head Resigns, Meta India’s Public Policy Director Also Left The Post, New Responsibility to Shivnath Thakral
WhatsApp’s India Head Abhijit Bose and Meta India Public Policy Director Rajeev Agarwal have resigned from their posts. Shivnath Thakral, Director of WhatsApp Public Policy in India, has now been made Public Policy Director for all Meta brands in India.
The development comes after Meta recently laid off around 11,000 people worldwide in its biggest layoff ever. Earlier this month, Meta India head Ajit Mohan resigned from his post.
Thanks to Abhijeet for the tremendous contribution
WhatsApp Head Will Cathcart said in a statement, “I would like to thank Abhijit Bose, our first head of WhatsApp in India, for his tremendous contribution. His entrepreneurial drive helped our team in delivering innovative service.
Millions of people and businesses have benefited from this. WhatsApp can do a lot more for India and we are excited to help drive India’s digital transformation.” Now a person will be appointed in place of Bose soon.
Bose also announced his resignation on LinkedIn, saying he was looking forward to his next job. He said, ‘After a short break, I plan to rejoin the entrepreneurial world. I had planned to step down some time ago, but given the events of the past week, I wanted to focus on supporting those who have been affected.
Rajeev Aggarwal also left the post
The company said that Rajeev Agarwal, Public Policy Director, Meta India, has decided to step down for the second opportunity. Over the past year, he has been instrumental in leading our policy-led initiatives in areas such as enhancing user-safety, privacy and programs like GOAL to drive digital inclusion in the country.
Shivnath Thakral, former television journalist
Thakral has been a television journalist and has been part of the public policy team since 2017 before focusing on WhatsApp. Manish Chopra, Director, Partnerships, India, said that in his new role, Thakral will be Public Policy Director for Meta Apps in India – Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
11 thousand employees were fired from Meta
Recently, Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, laid off 11,000 of its employees. For the first time in the company’s 18-year history, such a large number of employees have been laid off. The announcement to remove the employees was made by the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He attributed this to the decline in revenue due to wrong decisions.
Mark said, ‘Today I am going to tell about some of the most difficult decisions made in the history of Meta. We have decided to reduce our team size by approximately 13%. Due to this, more than 11 thousand talented employees will lose their jobs. We are taking steps to become a more efficient company by cutting expenses and extending the hiring freeze through Q1.
