From an Indian unicorn to a global tech behemoth – Snapdeal’s former Chief Product Officer Anand Chandrasekaran is going from strength to strength. He has joined Facebook and will work on its Messenger platform. Earlier this year, Chandrasekaran had quit Snapdeal after a year-long stint with the company.
“I am super excited to share that building on the learning and experiences – I am joining Facebook to work on Facebook Messenger platform. Really looking forward to working with Ime, David, Stan, John and the team to listen and learn and help build on the momentum,” he wrote in a Facebook post. He will work out of Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters and help develop strategies and partnerships for the platform.
Chandrasekaran had joined Snapdeal in June last year after stints with Airtel and Yahoo. He’d been at the helm of Snapdeal’s product launches, including its Lite mobile site and its image search feature, SnapSearch.
He’d also been a vocal evangelist of Snapdeal’s products on Twitter, and had sparred with Punit Soni, CPO of Snapdeal’s rival Flipkart, over Flipkart’s site crashing during its app-only days.
Since his Snapdeal exit, he’d become an active angel investor and had backed several Indian startups including Aisle, Rentongo and Buttercups.
After a trend of executives leaving foreign shores and returning home to India, Chandrasekaran – who was born and raised in India – moving back to the US is probably a sign that things are back to normal.