YouTube's chief product officer, Neal Mohan, will be the new head of YouTube.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down from her role after nine years leading the Google-owned company, the executive said.
Wojcicki joined Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brinn at what was nearly the start of it as the Stanford grad students were building a new search engine that is now among the largest, most powerful and most valuable companies in the world. In fact, Google’s headquarters were once located in Wojcicki’s garage. She created a series of key products for Google and helped orchestrate its acquisition of YouTube in 2006 in a stock deal worth $1.6bn.
Before Google, Wojcicki worked at Intel Corp and Bain & Company.
Wojcicki said she will assume an advisory role at YouTube and parent company Google to help with the transition. Her exit follows the departure of another longtime executive, YouTube’s former chief business officer, Robert Kyncl, who left in October to become the CEO of Warner Music Group.
Neal Mohan, the company’s chief product officer since 2015, will step in as SVP and head of the company, a division of Google.
In a message to staff, Wojcicki revealed that she will be focusing on family, health and personal projects that she is passionate about. “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.” She also thanked Sundar Pichai for constant support. Going forward, Wojcicki will be taking an advisory role across Google and Alphabet on Pichai’s suggestion.
