A downturn in the economy has majorly impacted the tech industry in the past few months. The mass layoffs have led tens of thousands of employees in jobs thought to be secure and high-paying to pack their bags. However, among these layoffs, the industry witnessed some major shuffles and leadership announcements globally.
Here are the 12 major leadership change(s) of 2022!
Meta
Meta appointed Sandhya Devanathan as the new head of India, effective from January 1, 2023. In her new role, Devanathan will report to Meta Asia-Pacific’s Vice President, Dan Neary. The new reporting hierarchy is reportedly a shift for the company, which had earlier witnessed Indian executives directly reporting to the US leadership.
Devanathan joined the firm in 2016, building the firm’s Singapore and Vietnam businesses. He was then appointed as the head and VP of Meta India. In 2020, the new India head moved to lead Meta’s gaming efforts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Adobe
Adobe appointed Venu Juvvala to lead its Digital Experience Business in India. Juvvala will report to Prativa Mohapatra, VP and managing director of Adobe India.
Prior to this, he was at Salesforce leading the enterprise business and was responsible for building strong relationships with CXOs and partnering with them in their digital transformation journeys. Juvvala worked in various roles at IBM for nearly two decades, where he was at the forefront of their cloud business, before joining Salesforce.
DataRobot
Boston-based AI platform DataRobot announced the appointment of Debanjan Saha as its new CEO in September. Under his leadership, the team would focus on driving the firm’s next phase of growth, delivering innovation for customers and the AI industry.
Wipro
Wipro appointed Amit Choudhary as the chief operating officer. Choudhary is now tasked with improving organizational efficiency and driving sustainable growth. He will manage the global business operations, delivery excellence, CIO, CISO, and enterprise risk management functions while working closely with the company leadership teams to improve customer-centricity.
In April, Wipro Limited announced the appointment of Anis Chenchah as a member of the Wipro Executive Board and Chief Executive Officer, APMEA. Chenchah brings over two decades of experience and has worked in IT and business services as well as consulting. Before this, Anis served as the Global CEO of Capgemini Business Services and a member of the Group Executive Committee. He holds a master’s degree in Engineering from ENSISA in France.
Wipro announced the appointment of Satya Easwaran as the Country Head for India. In his previous role, Easwaran served as the Head of Business Consulting, India (Telecom, Media and Technology sector lead) at KPMG.
As the Country Head, Easwaran will strengthen the company’s business in key sectors through strategic consulting, transformation and modernisation.
Microsoft India
Microsoft India appointed Irina Ghose as the chief operating officer replacing Rajiv Sodhi, who is moving to the US in a global role.
In her role, Ghose will drive end-to-end operations for Microsoft in the country. She plans to use her learnings of over two decades as a Microsoft employee to continue working with more than 14,000 partners and customers, aid the country in its digital transformation and provide skilling platforms for India’s youth.
OpenAI
- Greg Brockman appointed as the president
Greg Brockman was appointed as OpenAI’s president. He focuses on training OpenAI’s lead AI systems.
Brockman co-founded OpenAI and was previously the CTO. Some of the most notable projects he has worked on are OpenAIFive, OpenAI API, OpenAIFive, and Codex.
- Mira Murati appointed as the new CTO
Mira Murati was appointed as the new CTO replacing Greg Brockman. Her contributions have been instrumental to the success of DALL.E.
Previously, Mira oversaw research, product development, and deployment at OpenAI. She was also involved in hardware strategy and handled the reinforcement learning and safety research teams.
- Brad Lightcap appointed as COO
Brad Lightcap has been appointed as the chief operating officer. In his new role, Lightcap will work with OpenAI’s applied AI teams and his responsibilities include honing the company’s business and commercial strategies. In addition, he will continue to manage the OpenAI Startup Fund.
GlobalLogic
Hitachi’s GlobalLogic appointed its current chief operating officer (COO), Nitesh Banga, as the new president and the CEO. Banga has worked across functions from strategy, go-to-market, engineering, and operations—spending over two decades at IT services and consulting firm Infosys.
Tesla
Tesla appointed billionaire and Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia to its board of directors. As per a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gebbia has replaced Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison, who left the board earlier this year.
Gebbia, an entrepreneur and designer, has spent the last fourteen years as the co-founder of Airbnb.