Snapchat’s India team adds new members, current head Durgesh Kaushik to exit soon

In an effort to step up its India initiatives and focus, Snap Inc has made some new additions to the team here. Snap’s current director of India and South Asia market development is exiting the company and Lakshya Malu, who is currently Snap’s manager for marketing development, will be taking over as interim head. 

“As part of his career progression, Durgesh Kaushik, will soon be moving on from his role as Director of India & South Asia Market Development. Durgesh played an integral role in setting up the local office in 2019 and driving strategic expansion and growth efforts over the years,” Snap announced. 

“Snap’s localization and engagement efforts in India over the past years have been well received across our community, advertising partners and creators. Durgesh helped build this foundation and we are excited to continue our growth momentum with our new Indian colleagues Gaurav, Aishwarya, Vikash, Sachit, Hardik and Satyajit,” said Malu in a statement. 

The new hires include Gaurav Jain (previously Meta), Aishwarya Rao (previously Meta), Vikas Pandey (previously ByteDance), Sachit Prakash, Hardik Shah, Satyajit Swain, and Ragini Verma. Jain is the new head of APAC business expansion; Rao and Pandey have joined as global business expansion leads; Prakash is the new global business expansion associate. Collectively, these members “will be responsible for working with the largest advertisers in India,” Snap said. 

Shah is Snap’s first official leans creator in India to join the team to lead AR Indian developer relations. “In his role, Hardik will help democratize the ability to use and create AR through the Snap Lens Network of creators in India which has seen a growth of 200% since September 2020,” Snap said. 

Swain has joined as market development manager for East and South India markets, while Verma has joined as the head of growth of Spotlight in the region. 

“Partnering and nurturing the right talent to build a strong team locally has enabled Snap to create the best possible experience for Indian Snapchatters. Given its momentum, learnings from India now inform how Snap approaches community growth in new global geographies. India has emerged as a major growth market in recent quarters and Snap is really excited about building its business in the country. To this effect, Snap has recently made a number of new talent hires to bolster the Snap India team’s capabilities,” Snap said in a statement announcing the new hires.  

The company recently announced its ‘100 million Snapchatters’ milestone and has been working on intensifying its focus on India, the new hires are all a part of that initiative.

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