iWorld
Prodapt onboards Harsha Kumar as CEO
Mumbai: Prodapt, the fastest-growing specialized player in the connectedness industry, has elevated Harsha Kumar to chief executive officer (CEO). Kumar takes over from founder and CEO Vedant Jhaver, who will serve as the chairman of Prodapt.
As president over the last seven years, Kumar has played important roles in helping define growth strategies, delivering strong results through deep customer relationships, scaling practice areas, developing leadership talent, and building a strong operations organization for future growth.
As Prodapt is poised to strengthen its position as a category leader, Kumar will lead strategy, oversee business operations, and steer people & delivery excellence towards greater heights.
Before joining Prodapt, Kumar held several leadership positions in the technology services industry, and has successfully incubated and scaled several businesses that have grown to become large divisions. He also co-founded a software product company prior to that. He holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and the University of Maryland, College Park.
Congratulating Kumar on his new role, Jhaver said, “Kumar has been a big strength and partner to me over these years. His discipline and focus on execution have been critical to Prodapt’s leadership position in the Connectedness vertical. Kumar has built a reputation for being a dynamic and passionate leader with the highest levels of integrity and discipline in executing our strategy. With Kumar at the helm, Prodapt will continue to break new ground and solve our customers’ complex business challenges.”
On the appointment to this new role, Kumar commented, “I am honoured that the Prodapt Board has chosen me as the next CEO of Prodapt. We have a fantastic team at Prodapt and a proven strategy. I am excited to work closely with the leadership team and accelerate our company’s success with guidance from the Board and Jhaver. In the coming years, Prodapt will be the default partner of choice in the Connectedness industry and shape the way people, enterprises, and machines engage with each other.”
Prodapt provides technology services and consulting to clients across every layer of the Connectedness vertical, including the largest communications, media, and technology firms around the world. With over 6,000 technology and domain experts across 30+ countries, the company continues to grow its workforce rapidly across five continents.
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
