Even as media reports indicate that Meta, Facebook’s parent, is contemplating major cuts in manpower, Kaumudi Mahajan has quit Disney Star to join Meta India.
At Disney Star, Mahajan was senior vice president (marketing and strategy), Marathi network. She stepped down from her post after over 14 years to join Meta as head of entertainment and partnerships, according to a post on LinkedIn.
“I am looking forward to my next challenge at one of the most innovative companies that help people connect, build communities and grow businesses. I am thrilled as I start this new chapter and excited about what the future holds,” she wrote on LinkedIn, announcing her exit from Disney Star.
Mahajan started her career as an assistant manager of programming strategy at Star Plus in 2008. Over the last 14 years, she took on various roles at Star Plus and Star Pravah.
As the senior vice president, she launched a new movie channel for the Maharashtra market ‘Star Pravah Picture’.
Meta Plans Lay-Offs: Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week that will affect thousands of employees, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter, with an announcement planned as early as Wednesday.
Meta declined to comment on the WSJ report when Reuters asked about it.
Facebook parent Meta in October forecasted a weak holiday quarter and significantly more costs next year wiping about $67 billion off Meta’s stock market value, adding to the more than half a trillion dollars in value already lost this year, a Reuters report stated.
The disappointing outlook comes as Meta is contending with slowing global economic growth, competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, concerns about massive spending on the metaverse and the ever-present threat of regulation.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects the metaverse investments to take about a decade to bear fruit. In the meantime, he has had to freeze hiring, shutter projects and reorganize teams to trim costs.
“In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas. So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year. In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today” Zuckerberg said on the last earnings call late October.
The social media company had in June cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30 percent, with Zuckerberg warning employees to brace for an economic downturn.