Mumbai : After serving as CEO of YouTube for nine years, Susan Wojcicki announced her departure in a blog post. Chief product officer Neal Mohan will take over as the new CEO. Since 1999, when she joined Google as its first marketing manager, she has been affiliated with the corporation.
In a blog post Susan Wojcicki said, “Today, after nearly 25 years here, I’ve decided to step back from my role as the head of YouTube and start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I'm passionate about. The time is right for me, and I feel able to do this because we have an incredible leadership team in place at YouTube. When I joined YouTube nine years ago, one of my first priorities was bringing in an incredible leadership team,”
Susan remembered working with Neal Mohan for nearly 15 years, first when he joined Google with the DoubleClick acquisition in 2007 and then 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. 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 recalled.
“Twenty-five years ago I made the decision to join a couple of Stanford graduate students who were building a new search engine. Their names were Larry and Sergey. I saw the potential of what they were building, which was incredibly exciting, and although the company had only a few users and no revenue, I decided to join the team. It would be one of the best decisions of my life,” said the blog post.
In the short term, she plans to help Neal with the transition by continuing to work with some YouTube teams, coaching team members, and meeting with creators.
With everything YouTube is doing in Shorts, Streaming, and Subscriptions, as well as the promises of AI, the most exciting opportunities are ahead.
“Neal is the right person to lead us,” she said.
In the long run, she has agreed to join Sundar Pichai's advisory board at Google and Alphabet. Reminiscing about her time at YouTube, she stated that she has worn many hats and done many things over the years, including managing marketing, co-creating Google Image Search, leading Google's first Video and Book search, as well as early parts of AdSense's creation, working on the YouTube and DoubleClick acquisitions, serving as SVP of Ads, and serving as CEO of YouTube for the last nine years.
“I took on each challenge that came my way because it had a mission that benefited so many people’s lives around the world: finding information, telling stories and supporting creators, artists, and small businesses. I’m so proud of everything we’ve achieved. It’s been exhilarating, meaningful, and all-consuming,” she wrote.
