Snapchat has announced the appointment of Durgesh Kaushik as head of market development, India. With this appointment, Durgesh becomes Snapchat’s first employee in India and will lead local market development activities including strategic partnerships, community development and overall ecosystem initiatives that support growth. 

Nana Murugesan, managing director of International Markets stated, “We are delighted to welcome Durgesh on board as our Employee #1 based in market at such an exciting time for our business in India.”

Prior to joining Snap, Durgesh has worked in leadership roles at several Indian startups. Most recently, he worked as CEO and co-founder of Wishfie. Prior to that, he also spent over three years at Facebook in marketing roles in APAC and EMEA. He has also worked at Jio selected through their young leadership programme.

On his appointment, Durgesh Kaushik stated, “I see an enormous opportunity for Snapchat in India where people are embracing the opportunity to communicate quickly and easily with the people that matter to them without the pressure of likes and followers.” 

The announcement comes closely after recent initiatives launched by Snapchat to create an engaging and locally relevant experience for Indian Snapchatters. In this direction, the company added more than 10 local content partners, rapidly grew official accounts, and introduced support for Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi in March with southern Indian and other major languages to follow soon. In addition, it has also partnered with local sport and entertainment entities including several Indian Premier League teams as well as production houses Red Chillis Entertainment and Excel Entertainment.