'It Has Been A Tough Week': Ex-WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose Takes To LinkedIn After Stepping Down

Meta-owned WhatsApp is yet to announce a replacement for Bose.

Abhijit Bose shared a photo of his WhatsApp ID card on LinkedIn. ( Image Source :LinkedIn/Abhijit Bose )

WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose, who stepped down from his position, took to LinkedIn on Tuesday to express his thoughts soon after leaving the instant messaging company. Bose delayed his decision on resignation because of the layoff at Meta, according to the LinkedIn post. In his parting note, Bose said, "It has been a tough week for all of our team at WhatsApp as we had to say Goodbyes to many amazing teammates last week. Amidst all of this, I just shared some news with our WhatsApp and India teams. It has been planned for a while, but given the events last week, we wanted to hold this back so we could focus on supporting those impacted last week". 

Shivnath Thukral, WhatsApp’s director for public policy in India, will take charge as director of public policy for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in India. There has been no announcement from the company yet on a replacement for Bose. 

Bose, who added that he is excited about his next gig, shared his plans to rejoin the entrepreneurial world after a short break.

"I believe that the next five years will be transformational for India -- with many of our current pre-IPO companies very quickly becoming the global leaders in their respective sectors. After a small break, I plan to rejoin the entrepreneurial world; you’ll see announcements on that shortly!" he wrote.

Hoping that the platform continues to thrive, Bose said, "WhatsApp has the potential and opportunity to change the world. I hope that we keep our ambition and aggressiveness for impact, outsized and beyond what others think is achievable."

Bose joined WhatsApp in February 2019 after being the co-founder and CEO of the payments platform Ezetap for more than seven years (which is now a part of Razorpay), reported TechCrunch.

Several other executives departed amid Meta laying off employees from its global offices. On November 9, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company would be laying off about 13 per cent of its staff globally, leading to more than 11,000 layoffs.

WhatsApp and Meta in India have faced heavy scrutiny in the past few years starting from allegations of antitrust behaviour, privacy mishandling, and enabling the spread of fake news that led to election manipulation.