OpenAI poaches Uber India chief to lead its biggest market outside the U.S.
OpenAI has appointed former Uber India and South Asia president Prabhjeet Singh as its first managing director for India to scale its presence in what it calls its second-largest market after the U.S.
New Leadership for India
OpenAI is making another significant investment in India by hiring Prabhjeet Singh, the former president of Uber India and South Asia, as its first managing director for the country. Singh, who announced his resignation from Uber on Friday, will join OpenAI in September and report to Kiran Mani, the company's managing director for Asia Pacific. He will oversee OpenAI's performance in India across consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations.
Expansion Efforts
This hire is part of OpenAI's broader strategy to strengthen its foothold in India. The company opened its first office in New Delhi last August and earlier this year announced plans to establish new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. In 2024, it hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships, later expanding her role to head of strategy and global affairs. Previously, OpenAI brought on former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior adviser to help shape its engagement with the Indian government on AI policy.
Over the past few months, OpenAI has struck partnerships in India spanning higher education, enterprise payments, AI-powered commerce, and web streaming. It has also become part of the country's growing data center build-out. Indian conglomerates Reliance and Tata Group are among its early partners in the market.
Market Significance
OpenAI has pointed to India's rapidly growing adoption of ChatGPT as a sign of the market's importance. The company has simultaneously ramped up hiring in India, with openings including AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, a developer marketing lead, a partner director, and solutions engineers. India has emerged as a key battleground for U.S. AI companies, driven by its vast developer base, over a billion internet users, and surging demand for generative AI. Rival Anthropic opened its India office in Bengaluru in late 2025 and earlier this year named former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose as its India head.
