Sandhya Devanathan, Meta’s vice president for India and Southeast Asia, is leaving the company after more than a decade, marking the departure of one of the social media giant’s senior regional business leaders.
Devanathan announced her exit on LinkedIn, saying she had made the “bittersweet decision” to move on to her next chapter after joining the company in 2016, when Meta had around 300 employees in Singapore.
During her tenure, Devanathan held several senior leadership roles spanning India, Southeast Asia, eCommerce and gaming. She became vice president for India and Southeast Asia in June 2025, following more than two years as vice president for India.
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Before taking on the India leadership role, she served as vice president for Asia Pacific gaming from April 2020 to January 2023, where she led Meta’s gaming business across the region.
Devanathan originally joined Meta in Singapore in January 2016 as group director for Southeast Asia, overseeing ecommerce, travel and financial services. She subsequently became country managing director for Singapore and business head for Vietnam, a role she held until August 2020.
Before joining Meta, Devanathan spent more than 15 years in financial services, holding senior roles at Citi and Standard Chartered.
She began her career at Citi in 2000 as a product manager for Citibank Online, before moving through roles across consumer lending, customer retention and sales performance management.
She joined Standard Chartered in 2009 and held several leadership positions in Singapore, including managing director and head of credit cards and unsecured loans, and later managing director of retail banking and payment products.
Her time at Meta has coincided with the rapid expansion of social platforms as marketing, commerce and business-growth channels across Southeast Asia and India.
In her farewell post, Devanathan reflected on the shift from the digital transformation conversations of 2016 to a much more deeply embedded digital ecosystem today.
She highlighted work with startups, businesses and creators across the region, as well as initiatives involving WhatsApp-based government services in India, small businesses in Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, and startups in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
She added that while Meta’s team and products had evolved, its focus on delivering for clients had remained consistent.
Reflecting on her departure, Devanathan said she was particularly proud of the teams she had worked with and the work they had delivered across the region.
“More than anything, I will miss the people,” she said, thanking colleagues, businesses, ecosystem partners, non-profits and creators she had worked with throughout her tenure.
MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Meta for a statement.
Devanathan’s departure follows another senior Meta exit in the region, with Tawana Murphy Burnett, the company’s former head of top accounts and agencies for Asia Pacific, leaving after more than a decade with the tech giant.
Murphy Burnett joined Meta in 2015 and relocated to Singapore in 2019, later taking on the APAC top accounts and agencies role in 2023. Meta subsequently appointed Cindy Tan to lead the business, while former Meta executiveJon Kee also recently joined creator marketing platform Fabulate as commercial director for Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea.
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