Star TV, Hotstar, Meta, Snap: Ajit Mohan’s career maps India’s digital media boom

Ajit Mohan, the Indian technology executive who helped define streaming and social advertising in India, is stepping down as chief business officer of Snap Inc., capping a two-decade career that moved from global consulting to the boardrooms of Star, Hotstar, Meta and Snap. 

His exit, which was just announced with a last day expected on December 31, reads less like a departure and more like the closing chapter of an era in which India’s digital media and advertising story was being written in real time.

Mohan began in strategy consulting, spending roughly five years with Arthur D. Little in Southeast Asia on telecom projects around 2G and 3G, followed by another five at McKinsey in New York serving media clients. That grounding in media economics and digital disruption would become the quiet engine behind his later moves. 

In 2012, he returned to India to join Star TV Network as senior vice president, later becoming executive vice president, where he took charge of the broadcaster’s digital ambitions. By 2013 he had launched Starsports.com as a paid live sports platform, scaling it to over 100,000 subscribers and proving that Indian audiences would pay for premium digital experiences.

His most visible imprint came in 2015, when he conceptualised and launched Hotstar, and in April 2016 was named its founding CEO. Over the next four years he built Hotstar into India’s dominant streaming service, anchoring it around cricket and premium entertainment. 

When he left in December 2018, Hotstar was already a category-defining asset that would later merge with JioCinema to form JioHotstar in 2025.

In January 2019 Mohan joined Meta as vice president and managing director for India, responsible for strategy and operations in one of the company’s most critical growth markets. He was the only India chief reporting directly to Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park rather than through the Asia-Pacific regional structure, a signal of both India’s strategic importance and the mandate he carried. 

 His tenure spanned intense scrutiny on content moderation, regulatory engagement and the scaling of Meta’s family of apps across the country. In November 2022 he stepped down, with reports quickly linking him to rival Snap.

Mohan joined Snap in February 2023 as president for Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore, overseeing markets including India, Australia, Japan and Southeast Asia. In February 2025 he was elevated to chief business officer, taking charge of Snap’s global advertising business. 

In that role he led a strategic pivot from brand-led advertising to direct-response and performance ads, rewiring Snap’s ad platform to demonstrate measurable outcomes to advertisers. He often highlighted India as Snap’s largest user market, with over 250 million monthly active users, and saw him circumnavigate Snap's global offices.

On September 8–9, 2026 Snap announced that Mohan would step down as CBO to pursue other opportunities, citing personal reasons as his family remained in Singapore while his role demanded constant global travel. 

Ronan Harris, previously EMEA chief, will become Snap’s new chief commercial officer, taking over global ads leadership. 

For India’s digital media ecosystem, Mohan’s arc from Star to Hotstar to Meta and Snap maps the country’s own journey from linear TV to streaming to social and performance advertising.