Meta Platforms’ head of India, Ajit Mohan, resigned from his position after four years in the role to join rival Snap, representing a high-profile departure for the group in a major market.

Mohan confirmed the move on his LinkedIn profile following a report breaking the news by Reuters, stating he was stepping down to lead the Asia-Pacific region for Snap, as well as joining the company’s executive team.

The executive jumps ship at a time when Meta Platforms faces up to a host of challenges in India.

It is a target of the government, which is hiking regulation on big technology companies following criticism they are not doing enough to tackle fake news and hate speech.

India is, of course a huge market for Meta Platforms, with 450 million users of Facebook and 563 million users of its WhatsApp subsidiary.

During Mohan’s time, the company also used India as a testing ground for a range of services including Reels. In the financial year ending in March, Facebook revenue in the market reached $2.1 billion.

Ally to India
In his LinkedIn post, Mohan explained when he took the role at Meta Platforms, his objective was to build a team and a company which “would be a valuable ally to India and play a useful role in fuelling its economic and social transformation”.

“This is exactly what we have managed to do in the last four years,” he added.

Meta India’s current director and head of partnerships, Manish Chopra, will assume the position as interim head, a company representative told Reuters.