मेटा की संध्या देवनाथन OpenAI में शामिल होंगी; आईटी शेयरों में तेजी

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Daily Top 5Meta's Sandhya Devanathan to join OpenAI; IT stocks rally

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Meta’s India and South East Asia head Sandhya Devanathan is departing after 10 years to join OpenAI. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.

Meta's Sandhya Devanathan exits after decade-long stint, to join OpenAI

Sandhya Devanathan, vice president and head of India and South East Asia at Meta, on Friday announced her exit from the tech giant after more than 10 years. The senior executive will now join OpenAI.

Devanathan will join as OpenAI’s vice president for South East Asia and Australia.She will be based in Singapore and report to Kiran Mani, managing director for APAC.Devanathan will be OpenAI’s seniormost leader in South East Asia and Australia.She will oversee partnerships and support the wider AI ecosystem, while helping consumers, businesses, institutions, and government bodies benefit from AI.

Meta stint: In a LinkedIn post, Devanathan described the decision to leave Meta as "bittersweet". “Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working across sectors like ecommerce and gaming in APAC, and leading talented teams across India and Southeast Asia,” she wrote.

Devanathan joined Meta in 2016. She held several leadership roles, including leading its Asia Pacific gaming business and helping expand its presence in Singapore and Vietnam.

OpenAI’s focus: The ChatGPT maker has grown its Asia footprint in the past two years. It has opened local offices in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, and New Delhi, and expanded its regional leadership by appointing Mani and Prabhjeet Singh (to lead its India business).

Indian IT stocks surged on Friday, lifting the Nifty IT index by more than 3%.

LTIMindtree led with a gain of around 5%.HCLTech and TCS rose about 4% each. Coforge, Tech Mahindra, Persistent Systems, Infosys, and Oracle Financial Services Software rose roughly 3%.Wipro and Mphasis climbed around 2%.

Why the rally: The rally followed a strong move in US technology stocks after Nvidia reported better-than-expected quarterly results on Thursday. The chipmaker posted second-quarter revenues of $96.2 billion, up 106% on-year, and forecast earnings of around $108 billion in the current quarter.

The results eased concerns that the global AI investment cycle may be weakening and reinforced investor confidence in technology. That positive sentiment spilled over into Indian IT stocks.

Overall sentiment: Indian IT stocks have moved sharply in both directions this year. Earlier, investors worried that AI-native companies could disrupt the traditional labour-led IT services model, triggering a sectorwide sell-off. Following that, Indian IT held up relatively better during a broader global tech correction.

Hero MotoCorp doubles down on Ather with Rs 1,758 crore investment

Hero MotoCorp said in an exchange filing that it is investing about Rs 1,758 crore via a secondary transaction in electric two-wheeler maker Ather Energy, picking up an additional 3% stake.

Deal details: The new investment takes Hero’s holding in Ather to 32.8% from 29.88%. The shares will be acquired from an existing shareholder and the transaction is expected to close by September 3.