Facebook hires new country director for Singapore

Facebook has appointed Sandhya Devanathan (pictured) as country director for Singapore. She took on the role in August this year and was last group director, SEA - e-commerce, travel and FinServ at Facebook.Before joining Facebook she was also managing director of retail banking products at Standard Chartered Bank. She had been in the bank since 2009. Prior to that, she was with Citibank from 2000 working across markets such as India, The Philippines and US.Her announcement was made at the “Mobile Moves Commerce” industry event in Singapore. Currently, Facebook in Southeast Asia is an active and growing community with 265 million people, 95% of them on mobile.Devanathan said: “We’re seeing mobile commerce take off at an incredible pace in this region as businesses learn which mobile strategies works best for them. Our goal is to help businesses reach the more than 265 million people in Southeast Asia on Facebook and to get ahead in the shift to a mobile-first commerce landscape. We’re committed to helping businesses unlock growth opportunities and reach more people on mobile, whether it's brand building, generating demand, driving leads or sales through integrated campaigns on TV and Facebook and Instagram.”“Wherever people happen to be, whatever they happen to be doing, mobile is where they turn to be inspired, entertained, informed. Great work delivered on mobile has incredible power to move people to stop, discover, and act. And if mobile moves people, it’ll move business,” she added.