Facebook hired ex-yahoo, executive Anand Chandrasekaran on a strategic role to boost future anticipations of the Messenger application. The social networking giant appointed Chandrasekaran for a global leadership role to expand its services further in India. The move will build new partnerships and strategies for the Messenger app that has hit over one billion user account. As reported by The Business Insider website, Anand Chandrasekaran will assist social media company in building strategies for Facebook Messenger.
“They say the best journeys bring you home. We embarked on one two-and-a-half years ago, and it has been nothing short of incredible. I am super excited to share that building on the learning and experiences, I am joining Facebook to work on Facebook Messenger platform,” Chandrasekaran wrote in a Facebook post. “Core to every major platform I’ve worked on is a belief that technology should help level the playing field for all-something that is at the heart of Facebook and Messenger,” he added.
Anand worked at Yahoo from 2011 to 2014 as a Senior Director for search products and mobile products. Later he joined Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel as a Chief Product Officer and helped the company spread its service with music and mobile payment platforms. Later he joined Snapdeal, the Indian e-commerce company as the Chief Product Officer. Anand helped Snapdeal by launching a revamped website and app that introduced the image search feature. Chandrasekaran played a big role in acquiring Freecharge and merging it with Snapdeal at $400 million.
Chandrasekaran completed his undergraduate degree in India and MS from Stanford University. After graduating, he co-founded a mobile application software company, Aeroprise, which was further acquired by BMC software in 2011. Before joining Airtel, he spent about 13 years with various technological firms like Openwave systems, Yodlee and Yahoo in the Silicon Valley. The World Economic Forum awarded Chandrasekaran as the Young Global Leader. Anand notified about joining the Social media giant through a Facebook post. He will join Facebook’s Menlo Park office.
Facebook Messenger has a download count of more than one billion, which makes it second most popular Android and iOS application. The app currently has 10 percent of VoIP market share. Facebook is continuously working to make its app user-friendly and with the launch of bots for Messenger, it will further allow businesses to automate responses.
India has become a critical market for Facebook which is now second only to the US in terms of Facebook users. “Messenger is going to be the next big platform for sharing privately,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said. “Connecting India is an important goal we won’t give up on, because more than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.
