Google India's Rajan Anandan To Join Sequoia Capital

Rajan Anandan, Google's vice president for Southeast Asia and India, has quit the company and joined Sequoia Capital India as a managing director.

Mr Anandan will continue at Google till the end of April and Vikas Agnihotri, country director, sales will take on the responsibility in the interim for Google India, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mr Anandan 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 programme for startups, said Shailendra J Singh, managing director at Sequoia.

"Surge" aims to engineer rapid early progress for start-ups, by enabling disproportionate access to capital, talent, network and decades of company-building knowledge. 

"Anandan's deep understanding of technology, significant operating expertise and track record of growing tech businesses across the region will help 'Surge' founders scale and build the transformational businesses of tomorrow," Mr Singh said in a statement. 

As head of Google India and Southeast Asia, Mr Anandan played a key role in expanding the internet ecosystem in the region and increasing adoption among consumers and businesses. 

"We are grateful to Anandan 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," said Scott Beaumont, president, Google Asia Pacific.

Mr Anandan is also an angel investor who has backed a large number of successful start-ups at the very early stages. 

Before joining Google, he led Microsoft and Dell in India and was earlier a Partner at McKinsey & Co in Chicago.