Rajan Anandan, VP for Google South East Asia and India and the managing director for Google India has stepped down from his post after an eight-year stint at Google. He will be continuing in his position till the end of April. Post his resignation, Google has appointed Vikas Agnihotri, Country Director, Sales to take on the responsibility in the interim for Google India.
Rajan will now be joining Sequoia Capital India as Managing Director. Sequoia said in a statement that he will join the leadership team at the firm, in addition to the six current Managing Directors, where he will focus on developing Surge into the world’s top scale-up program for startups by acting as an investment advisor and mentor to the program’s founders.
Rajan joined Google in 2011 and has previously worked as MD of Microsoft India, Vice President and Country General Manager at Dell India and has also worked as a Partner at McKinsey & Company.
8 amazing years. 850million internet users across India and SEA. Many billions of revenue and fastest growing region in the world. Incredible team that thinks big and executes superbly. Thank you @GoogleIndia #GoogleSEA. Loved every minute.
— Rajan Anandan (@RajanAnandan) April 2, 2019
"We are grateful to Rajan for his huge contribution to Google over the past eight years. His entrepreneurial zeal and leadership has helped grow the overall internet ecosystem in India and Southeast Asia, and we wish him all the best in his new adventures,” Scott Beaumont, President, Google Asia Pacific said in a statement.
Apart from heading Google India, Rajan has also been an active angel investor, having invested in several startups in India. He has invested in startups such as My Upchar, GamingMonk, Instamojo, TravelKhana, Capillary Technologies, Nivesh.com, among others. He is also a part of Indian Angel Network and is the president of TiE Delhi-NCR.
“As head of Google India & Southeast Asia, he has played a key role in expanding the internet ecosystem in the region, increasing adoption among consumers and businesses and accelerating innovation while building a multi-billion dollar business that continues to grow very fast. He is also a prolific angel investor who has backed a large number of successful start-ups at the very early stages. Rajan has also led Microsoft and Dell in India, and was earlier a Partner at McKinsey & Co in Chicago,” Sequoia Capital India said in a statement.