Facebook has brought on board a former executive of Yahoo, Bharti Airtel and Snapdeal – Anand Chandrasekaran – to help strategise for its Messenger app. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the appointment on Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Chandrasekaran confirmed the jump to Facebook in a post on the site on Monday, according to Mint. "Going native and reconnecting with the country you grew up in is something I didn’t imagine I would get to do, let alone witnessing the entrepreneurial journey that is driving India forward," he wrote.

The 38-year-old, who joined Airtel in 2014, is credited with launching its Wynk music app and Airtel Money. He was hired by Snapdeal a year later, where he was behind the revamped version of its website and app, as well as the integration of Freecharge – the mobile payments firm Snapdeal had acquired in April 2015, according to Mint.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said earlier that Messenger was "going to be the next big platform for sharing privately". More than one billion people use Messenger every month, according to the social media platform.