YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki speaks during the opening ceremony of Google I/O 2017 at Shoreline Amphitheater on May 17, 2017 in Mountain View, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced Thursday that she is stepping down. Chief Product Officer Neil Mohan will take on a leadership role as SVP and new head of YouTube.
“Today, after nearly 25 years here, I’ve decided to step down from my role as head of YouTube and start a new chapter dedicated to my family, health and personal projects that I’m passionate about,” she said.
Wojcicki, 54, became CEO of YouTube in 2014.
She will continue to work with YouTube teams, train members and meet with creators, she added.
Wojcicki said she has agreed with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai to take on a long-term advisory role for Google and Alphabet. “This will allow me to leverage the various experiences I’ve gained over the years to offer advice and guidance to Google and Alphabet’s portfolio of companies,” she wrote.
“The time is right for me and I feel like I can do it because we have an incredible leadership team at YouTube,” she said. “When I joined YouTube nine years ago, one of my top priorities was to bring in an incredible leadership team.”
Wojcicki has longstanding ties to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whom she allowed to work from her home in Menlo Park, California, after Google was founded. Paige and Breen rented a garage space from her for $1,700 a month. At that time, Wojtycki worked in the marketing department of Intel.
She joined Google in 1999 and spent fourteen years leading the design and creation of Google’s advertising and analytics products. In recent years, YouTube has expanded its physical footprint in areas such as New York and near its headquarters in San Bruno, California.
In a blog post, Wojcicki said she spent nearly 15 years of her career working with Mohan, the new head of YouTube, “beginning when he moved to Google with the acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007 and as his position grew to becoming senior vice president of display and video advertising. “
YouTube has faced pressure in recent years amid the rise in popularity of social media, namely TikTok, which it has tried to compete with through its short video platform Shorts. YouTube’s fourth-quarter ad revenue came in at $7.96 billion, missing analysts’ expectations and down 8% from a year earlier.
