Meet Neal Mohan, the new CEO of YouTube and the successor of Susan Wojcicki

On Thursday, the CEO of the video-sharing platform YouTube, Susan Wojcicki announced that she will be stepping down from her position. In an emotional letter to the YouTube Community, Wojcicki recalled her 25 years long association with the Internet search engine, Google and her 9-year-long association with YouTube. It was also announced by Susan, that her longtime aide, Indian-American, Neal Mohan will be assuming her office after she steps down. Mohan was serving as the Chief Product Officer at YouTube. 

Following the announcement by Susan, Mohan took to Twitter to express his gratitude to his longtime colleague. “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…” Mohan wrote on Twitter. The new CEO now joins the club of decorated Indian-origin CEOs who are heading several tech giants all around the world. Even the CEO of YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet is Indian-origin tech genius, Sundar Pichai. 

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)

Who is Neal Mohan? 

The new YouTube CEO bagged an MBA degree from Standford University, It was the same University where he received his electrical engineering degree in 1996. According to his Linkedin Page, Mohan started off his journey as Senior Analyst at Accenture. From there, he worked in companies like Microsoft and then joined Google in 2008. It was the Display and Video Ads department, where he met his longtime colleague Susan Wojcicki. According to Vox, Mohan was Wojcicki’s go-to guy during his time at Google. It was the year 2015 when he became the Chief Product Officer at YouTube. In the company, Mohan was responsible for user experience and trust and safety, globally. The new YouTube Chief is also on the Board of Directors in companies like Stitch Fix and 23andMe. 

Praises from the bosses

In the Thursday letter, Wojcicki recalled her association with Mohan and praised the CEO. “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,” she wrote in the letter. “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 added. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai also had kind words to say for the new YouTube boss. “Susan has built an exceptional team and has in Neal a successor who is ready to hit the ground running and lead YouTube through its next decade of success,” Sundar Pichai said in a statement, Vox reported.