WhatsApp may get an Indian CEO following Jan Koum’s exit

• Ex IITian can be the next CEO of WhatsApp.
• Neeraj Arora is a ex-googler.
• Neeraj graduated from IIT-Delhi in 2000 and did his MBA from Indian School of Business in 2006.

Neeraj Arora, a 39 year old IITian may step up to the CEO position at WhatsApp after Jan Koum stepped down earlier this week. The former CEO resigned from the company due to differences with its parent company, Facebook.

With 1.5 million monthly users, WhatsApp is the biggest mobile messaging service in the world. Also, over 3 million people are actively using WhatsApp Business app.

Arora has being associated with WhatsApp for the past seven years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is the head of “All Things Business” at WhatsApp in the San Francisco Bay area. According to reports, Arora is considered the “number four” person at WhatsApp. This plus his extensive experience of working with some of the top tech companies is why he is being considered for the position.

He started his career in 2000 as a product manager with the private cloud sharing and governance platform Accellion Inc.

Prior to working with WhatsApp, he served as a board member for Paytm for a period of nearly three years.

Arora has also worked with Google in the past. He worked as a corporate development manager for nearly three years before being promoted to lead the company's corporate development team where he lead acquisitions and strategic investments across products and geographies.

Neeraj is an IIT-Delhi 2000 batch pass-out. After his bachelors in mechanical engineering he completed his MBA in finance and strategy from the India School of Business in 2006.