YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki quits; Indian-American Neal Mohan to replace her

NEW YORK: YouTube Chief Executive and one of the first Google employees, Susan Wojcicki, is stepping down from her role in the tech giant that started in her garage 25 years ago, she said in a personal update posted on the video-sharing platform on Thursday.
Wojcicki will be replaced by insider Neal Mohan. The change of guard comes as YouTube is vying for viewing time with popular short-form video app TikTok and streaming services like Netflix.
One of the most prominent women in tech, Wojcicki, 54, said she will focus on “family, health, and personal projects”.

Wojcicki announced her departure in a memo to YouTube staff, according to reports. “The time is right for me, and I feel able to do this because we have an incredible leadership team in place at YouTube,” Wojcicki said. She was previously senior vice president for ad products at Google and became the CEO of YouTube in 2014.

Announcing that Mohan would step into her shoes, she said: “When I joined YouTube nine years ago, one of my first priorities was bringing in an incredible leadership team. Neal Mohan was one of those leaders, and he’ll be the SVP and new head of YouTube. I’ve spent nearly 15 years of my career working with Neal, first when he came over to Google with the DoubleClick acquisition in 2007 and as his role grew to become SVP of Display and Video Ads. He became YouTube’s Chief Product Officer in 2015.”
“Since then, he has set up a top-notch product and UX team, played pivotal roles in the launch of some of our biggest products, including YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Premium and Shorts, and has led our Trust and Safety team, ensuring that YouTube lives up to its responsibility as a global platform.”
Concluding her announcement, she noted that Mohan has a “wonderful sense for our product, our business, our creator and user communities, and our employees. Neal will be a terrific leader for YouTube.”

Mohan, a Stanford graduate, joined Google in 2008 and is the chief product officer at YouTube where he been focusing on building YouTube Shorts and Music.
Mohan has also worked with Microsoft and sits on the board of Stitch Fix and genomics and biotechnology company 23andMe.
He will join a growing list of Indian-origin CEOs at the helm of US-based global giants, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Indra Nooyi had served as PepsiCo’s CEO for 12 years before stepping down in 2018.
Alphabet shares were barely changed for the day, down less than 1% after the news.
(With inputs from agencies)