Neal Mohan, the Indian-origin Chief Executive Officer of YouTube, has been named the 2025 CEO of the Year by TIME magazine. TIME offered high praise in its profile of the executive, stating, “In many ways, YouTube is creating the cultural diet that the globe is beginning to subsist on. Mohan is the farmer; what he cultivates will be what we eat”.
The magazine elaborated on the platform's pervasive influence: “YouTube provides the soil, and everyone comes and plants whatever nourishing or noxious plants they care to. As the garden takes over more of the planet, even threatening some old-growth forests, whatever grows there becomes what everyone consumes, because it’s what’s available, and often what’s free”.
A "mellow" leader focused on adaptation
Describing Mohan's demeanor, TIME noted that the pilot of the "world's most powerful distraction machine" is "surprisingly mellow".
"He's quiet-spoken, deliberative, hard to ruffle," the profile continued. "He likes watching sports, going to his daughters' dance recitals, and open white shirts, just normal stuff... If you ask him to be in your YouTube video, he'll probably do it. He won't be great in it, but neither will he be horrible,” TIME said.
Mohan's primary focus, according to the magazine, is running YouTube amidst rapid change. He acknowledges the disruptive nature of the industry: "The entire dynamics of the entire media industry are changing before our eyes... It's incredibly disruptive, and if you don't adapt, you can be left by the wayside”.
His core philosophy regarding content is clear: "The fundamental North Star of how I think about content policies and moderation in general on YouTube is to give everyone a voice".
Top 5 things to know about Neal Mohan
- Mohan has served as the CEO of the social media and online video sharing platform YouTube since 2023, succeeding Susan Wojcicki.
- He was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and spent most of his childhood in the US before moving to Lucknow, India, with his parents in 1985 at the age of 12. He returned to the US from India in 1992 to pursue his education.
- Mohan's educational background features a degree in electrical engineering and a MBA from Stanford University, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He once compared learning Sanskrit to engineering, stating, "It’s incredibly phonetic and rules-oriented... It was like learning computer programming, basically”.
- Before his current position, Mohan worked as YouTube's Chief Product Officer. Before joining YouTube, he played a key role in the early days of digital advertising at a company called DoubleClick. After that, he helped with DoubleClick's acquisition by Google and worked on integrating the two companies. Eventually, he became a Senior Vice President at Google, where he focused on display and video advertising, helping to make Google a top player in the advertising technology field.
- Mohan currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and children.
