Google's India public policy head Sreenivasa Reddy quits

Google is currently fighting antitrust challenges against the business practices of its businesses such as Android and Play Store in India

Google India's public policy head Sreenivasa Reddy is leaving the company after a short stint of about 16 months, marking a key departure for the tech giant in a market where it is facing a series of antitrust challenges.

A Google spokesperson has confirmed this departure to Moneycontrol but didn't disclose any further details.

Reddy had joined Google in September 2023, a year after the previous public policy head, Archana Gulati resigned just five months into the job in 2022.

Before joining Google, Reddy was Microsoft’s head of XR (extended reality) regulatory affairs for the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region for two years. He also served as the company's senior director for mixed reality engineering (device and technology) function.

He was also Apple's head of regulatory affairs in India for nearly three and half years between 2018-2021 after heading Ericsson's government and industry relations in the country for five years between 2013-2018.

Google is currently fighting antitrust challenges against the business practices of its businesses such as Android and Play Store.

The company is also facing antitrust probes from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for alleged abuse of dominance in its other businesses such as smart television market, and news aggregation.

In November 2024, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) launched a new investigation into Google for alleged antitrust violations.

This was following a complaint by real-money gaming firm WinZO that alleged that Google is abusing its dominant position through discriminatory treatment favouring certain real-money games (RMG), denial of market access, restrictions on advertising, and misleading warnings during app downloads.

Google India also recently saw a change in its top management with Preeti Lobana appointed as its new country manager and vice president of its India operations in December 2024. She took over from Sanjay Gupta, who was promoted earlier this year as the company's president of the Asia Pacific region.