OpenAI names Mani Asia-Pacific Chief for expansion

OpenAI has appointed Kiran Mani as Managing Director for Asia-Pacific, a newly created role covering a region it has identified as a priority for expansion.

Based in Singapore, OpenAI's regional hub, Mani will report to Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon and is expected to take up the post in June 2026.

The appointment establishes a senior regional leadership role as OpenAI expands across India, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and Australia. The position covers strategy, partnerships and market expansion, as well as broader commercial and strategic activity across Asia-Pacific.

Mani will also oversee enterprise adoption, government engagement, developer ecosystem growth and regional partnerships. The role forms part of OpenAI's broader shift from a US-led operating structure toward more local oversight in international markets.

Regional focus

Asia-Pacific has become a more important market for artificial intelligence companies as businesses, governments and software developers increase spending on AI tools. The region also presents a more complex policy environment, prompting suppliers to build local teams to manage regulation, procurement and relationships with public bodies.

OpenAI has been expanding beyond the United States as demand grows for large language models and related software. India is one of its largest user markets and is expected to play a central role in regional growth plans. The company has also built up operations in Tokyo, Singapore, South Korea and Australia.

The move places OpenAI in more direct competition across Asia-Pacific with Google, Anthropic and other AI providers increasing investment in the region. Across the sector, companies are pursuing local partnerships with cloud providers, telecom operators, software groups and public agencies as they seek to turn early interest in generative AI into sustained business use.

Broader shift

Creating the Asia-Pacific managing director role suggests OpenAI expects the region to make a meaningful contribution to enterprise revenue, public sector partnerships and infrastructure tied to large-scale AI deployment. It also reflects the need for local management as customers seek language support, region-specific products and closer integration with domestic technology partners.

Recent international hiring has focused on policy, partnerships and enterprise sales, reflecting the demands of selling AI services across multiple jurisdictions. OpenAI has also been building regional teams to work with governments, universities, developers and corporate customers as adoption moves from testing to production.

That shift is especially visible in finance, software development, media, telecommunications and public administration, where organisations are beginning to deploy AI models in live environments. In Asia-Pacific, this is happening against a backdrop of varied national rules, differing data expectations and intense competition for local alliances.

Mani's background

Mani joins from JioStar, the Reliance Industries and Disney joint venture, where he was Chief Executive Officer of the digital and streaming division. There, he oversaw product strategy, platform growth and the expansion of digital services used by hundreds of millions of customers.

His work included ecosystem partnerships, distribution growth and service development across several markets. That experience is likely to be relevant as OpenAI seeks broader use of its tools among both large consumer platforms and enterprise customers.

Before JioStar, Mani was Managing Director for Android and Google Play in Asia-Pacific at Google, where he led regional operations for the mobile platform and app ecosystem. He also held earlier roles at Microsoft and IBM, working across cloud, enterprise software and platform technologies.

His career spans more than two decades in consumer technology, digital platforms and ecosystem development. That background gives him experience in markets where software adoption often depends on partnerships, localisation and distribution through large regional networks.

For OpenAI, those factors are becoming increasingly important as it looks to deepen its position in Asia-Pacific. Mani will oversee customer adoption, infrastructure relationships, localisation and compliance across a region that is playing a larger role in the global AI industry.

He will also coordinate activity across multiple national markets rather than from the United States, reflecting OpenAI's push for stronger local oversight as competition and regulatory scrutiny intensify.