Facebook India’s Management team decided; Hiring to follow soon

Facebook on Thursday announced two key appointments in India: Kirthiga Reddy will head the firm’s India Online Operations and Manoj Varghese will be Director of User Operations. The move comes after Facebook declared that it would open  a new office in the southern Indian IT hub of Hyderabad to deal with online advertising and customer support, much like other Facebook centers in the US and Ireland.

The latest episode can be seen as an attempt to further bolster its expansion in India and grab the numero uno spot in the social networking field. It is worth mentioning here that Facebook has about 8 million unique users currently in India only behind Google’s Orkut which still has retained a strong presence in India and Brazil.

Kirthiga Reddy joins from Phoenix Technologies, where she was VP and GM, heading Phoenix India’s team in Bangalore. She has 14 years of work experience and has also served as director of Good Technology Group (Motorola’s mobility solution provider) during 2008-09. She holds an MS in computer engineering from Syracuse University, New York and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, California. Social networks in India and its neighboring countries have increasingly had to deal with demands for moderation of groups and fora that one community or another finds offensive. Hence Reddy will, in particular, have to liaison with the Indian government at city, state and national levels. However, as Director of Online Operations, Reddy’s primary role will be expanding the reach of the network in terms of Facebook users, advertisers and developers worldwide.

Kirthiga Reddy seen here with Phoenix Technologies’ CEO Woody Hobbs

Manoj Varghese, prior to this was People Operations director in Google India and was responsible for Google’s staffing function and human resource function in the Asia pacific and Japan regions . Prior to Google, he was the HR head at Dell International Services, Hyderabad and managed staff appointments for Dell India. He has also worked with Infosys Technologies and Maruti Suzuki. He was chosen for his record of being able to create dynamic teams in operations while Reddy’s experience in technology along with her respected and business savvy success found her as a good match.

According to a statement released by Don Faul, who is the Global Online Operations Director of Facebook, they have spent the last few months globally searching for strong candidates who are capable of leading the ambitious operations of Facebook in India. Facebook intends to invest $150 million and hire 500 people in India, primarily to service its global operations. Manoj will build a user support team while Reddy would be responsible for supporting Facebook users, advertisers and wed developers. After naming its management team, Facebook would start its hiring process and look for people to specialize in spearheading local programs and building partner relationships.