Neal Mohan, the man shaping YouTube and TIME’s 2025 CEO of the Year

YouTube’s Indian-origin Chief Executive Officer Neal Mohan has been named the 2025 CEO of the Year by TIME magazine. The publication praised Mohan for shaping global culture through the world’s largest video platform.

"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," TIME said in its profile of the executive.
"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," it added.

A quiet, influential tech leader

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Describing Mohan, the magazine said the pilot of the world’s most powerful distraction machine is "surprisingly mellow". "He's quiet-spoken, deliberative, hard to ruffle. 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," it said. TIME highlighted that Mohan remains focused on one core mission: running YouTube.

Neel Mohan's journey: From Google to YouTube

Mohan became YouTube’s CEO in 2023, succeeding Susan Wojcicki. Born in Lafayette, Indiana, he spent much of his early life in the US before relocating to India briefly. Over the years, he has emerged as one of the most influential leaders in global digital media.

TIME said one of Mohan’s defining values is his commitment to helping people be heard. Long known for transforming how people discover music, YouTube now dominates spoken-word content too—TIME noted that one-third of podcast listeners use YouTube as their primary platform. The company says a billion people tune in every month.

YouTube has also become a powerful player in live sports. After acquiring rights to NFL Sunday Ticket in 2023, the platform has expanded global livestreams, including a major event in Brazil. Its ongoing disputes with broadcasters like Disney over distribution fees reflect the industry’s growing concern that YouTube may reshape TV consumption entirely.

Neal Mohan is a two-time Stanford University graduate. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1996 and was inducted into Tau Beta Pi, the renowned engineering honor society. He later returned to Stanford to pursue an MBA in General Management at the Graduate School of Business, graduating in 2005 as an Arjay Miller Scholar—an honor reserved for the top students in each class.

Mohan began his career in consulting before joining the digital advertising startup NetGravity, which was eventually acquired by DoubleClick. He continued with DoubleClick and played a key role in its $3.1 billion acquisition by Google in 2007. Although he briefly considered a move to Twitter, he ultimately stayed at Google after receiving a major retention offer.

His work on the DoubleClick deal brought him into close collaboration with Susan Wojcicki, who would later become YouTube’s CEO. She recruited Mohan to YouTube, where the two worked together for many years. In 2023, he succeeded her as CEO, and Wojcicki—who had been diagnosed with cancer—passed away in 2024.