Facebook gets the team to open India office

MUMBAI, INDIA: Facebook on Thursday announced two key appointments to launch its operations office in India, marking the company’s progress towards establishing a local team in the country.

As director of online operations, Kirthiga Reddy will head Facebook’s operations in India, supporting the company’s growing number of users, advertisers and developers worldwide who are capitalizing on Facebook’s global service to foster relationships with people and reach out to new customers locally and internationally. Kirthiga and the India team will also be instrumental in developing effective relationships with government officials at the city, state, and national levels, said a press release.

Working closely with Kirthiga will be Manoj Varghese, director of user operations. He will specialize in building a world-class user support team to serve the needs of the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who actively use Facebook every day, including more than 8 million active users in India.

Both Kirthiga and Manoj will be based in Facebook’s newly opened office in Hyderabad. The company also intends to expand its management team in India, adding leadership that will specialize in spearheading local programs and building partner relationships, the release said.

Kirthiga joins Facebook from Phoenix Technologies, where she served as vice president and general manager, heading Phoenix India’s team in Bangalore. Meanwhile, Manoj joins Facebook from Google, where he served as Director of People Operations, responsible for HR and staffing in the Japan and Asia Pacific regions.

“We’ve spent the past few months searching globally for a strong candidate capable of leading Facebook’s ambitious operations in India,” said Don Faul, director of Global Online Operations for Facebook. “Kirthiga’s deep experience in technology, business savvy and respected success leading teams make her a perfect match for this role. As Kirthiga knows better than anyone, global operations are only as strong as the people behind them, and Manoj comes with a proven record of creating dynamic operations teams, ”he added.