OpenAI has hired Sanjay Deshmukh as its first vice president of Asia Pacific sales.

Based in Singapore, he will lead the company’s sales efforts across the region as more companies in Asia Pacific deploy AI tools.

Deshmukh joins from Elastic, a search and data analytics software company based in the US, where he was vice president for Asia Pacific.

He previously served as senior vice president for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and India at Snowflake and held regional leadership roles at VMware.

He will report to CRO Dali Rajic and work with OpenAI leaders including Kiran Mani, Oliver Jay, and regional teams.

The hire adds to OpenAI’s Singapore expansion after the company said it would open an office there to support Asia Pacific growth.

Mani also recently joined OpenAI as its Asia Pacific head in Singapore.

For enterprise customers, OpenAI also introduced data residency in Asia in 2025. Separately, Singapore has issued a model AI governance framework for generative AI.

🔗 Source: OpenAI

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