Neal Mohan: All about the new YouTube CEO
Mohan joins a growing list of Indian-origin CEOs at the helm of US-based global giants
Indian-American Neal Mohan will be the new CEO of Google's video division YouTube. He will replace Susan Wojcicki, who stepped down from her role on Thursday after nine years.
Mohan (49) joins a growing list of Indian-origin CEOs at the helm of US-based global giants, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.
In a tweet after his appointment, Mohan wrote, "Thank you, @SusanWojcicki. It's been amazing to work with you over the years. You've built YouTube into an extraordinary home for creators and viewers. I'm excited to continue this awesome and important mission. Looking forward to what lies ahead."
Thank you, @SusanWojcicki. It's been amazing to work with you over the years. You've built YouTube into an extraordinary home for creators and viewers. I'm excited to continue this awesome and important mission. Looking forward to what lies ahead... https://t.co/Rg5jXv1NGb
— Neal Mohan (@nealmohan) February 16, 2023
Mohan had been the Chief Product Officer at YouTube for seven years before becoming the CEO on Thursday. As per his LinkedIn profile, Mohan moved to the YouTube team in 2015.
Under Mohan's leadership, YouTube launched a number of successful products and features, including YouTube Music, YouTube TV, YouTube Premium and YouTube Shorts, wrote Susan in her farewell blog. She also credited Mohan for developing new revenue streams for creators, such as Super Chat, Super Stickers, and channel memberships. He has also helped creators get more value out of their content by improving ad targeting and providing them with better analytics.
“Mohan has led our Trust and Safety team, ensuring that YouTube lives up to its responsibility as a global platform. He 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,” she wrote.
According to a Business Insider report, “Mohan was offered a lucrative position at Twitter for his product expertise but Google offered him over $100 million in bonus around the time to keep him at the company.”
Mohan holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Stanford University in 1996 and an MBA degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2005. His work journey began with Accenture (then called Andersen Consulting) in 1996. He later joined a startup called NetGravity which was later acquired by Internet advertising firm DoubleClick. DoubleClick was acquired by Google in 2007 for US$3.1 billion. He quickly rose through the ranks at Google. Mohan played a pivotal role in the development of AdSense, a program that enables website owners to display Google ads and earn revenue AdSense is now one of the most successful advertising platforms in the world.
Mohan has had a stint with Microsoft where he was the manager of corporate strategy.
