(March 25): OpenAI is tapping Kiran Mani, the chief executive officer of Indian streaming platform JioStar, for a newly created role leading its Asia-Pacific operations.
Mani will take up the position of managing director for the region in June, relocating to the ChatGPT maker’s Singapore office and reporting to chief strategy officer Jason Kwon. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the move. Mani couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
OpenAI is in a race against rivals such as Anthropic PBC and Alphabet Inc’s Google to capture users, with populous markets across Asia holding significant promise. India, with more than 1.4 billion people, is a key country for the company.
JioStar, a joint venture between Reliance Industries Ltd and Walt Disney Co, runs the JioHotstar streaming platform. The service has tapped into India’s obsession with cricket, as well as its appetite for soap operas and reality shows, building a subscriber base of more than 300 million.
In 2024, OpenAI hired its first employee in the country, a government relations head, and has been ramping up staff since then. In February, OpenAI announced a partnership with the Tata Group to build artificial intelligence technologies, including data centre infrastructure.
Previously, Mani worked at Google for more than 13 years, rising to general manager for Android and Google Play across Asia-Pacific and Japan, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also worked at Microsoft Corp and International Business Machines Corp.
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