Neal Mohan Named TIME's 2025 CEO Of The Year 2025: A Look At Indian-Origin YouTube Head's Success Story

TIME Magazine has recognised YouTube's Indian-origin head, Neal Mohan, as its 2025 CEO of the Year.

"Mohan likes to describe what he and his colleagues do as building the world’s best stage for people to perform on...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, highlighting the global impact of YouTube under the leadership of Neal Mohan.

"In an era when tech titans are also sometimes trying to win medals in Brazilian jiujitsu or dismantle a government agency or take tourists into space, Neal Mohan is focused on one thing. He just runs YouTube," the magazine added.

Neal Mohan was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1973. According to his LinkedIn profile, he completed his BS in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1996 and received an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2005.

In his interaction with TIME, he described the impact Star Wars had on him. "That movie changed my life," he said.

A Yoda figurine, given to him by his mother, still holds pride of place on his desk. At age 12, during the mid-1980s, he and his two brothers were relocated by their parents to Lucknow, India, a move that came as quite a shock.

"I was upset at losing my friends," he said. He eventually returned to the United States.

Mohan transitioned from consulting to joining NetGravity, an early player working on ways to monetise the web through ads. DoubleClick acquired NetGravity before Google stepped in and purchased DoubleClick in 2007 for $3.1 billion, TIME reported.

Mohan led the negotiations for DoubleClick, a deal that fuelled Google’s rise into a media titan. The acquisition stirred debate because DoubleClick’s heavy reliance on cookies, small data trackers that follow users’ web activity, had already attracted criticism.

He was SVP, Display and Video Ads, Google, from 2008 to 2015.

Mohan was Chief Product Officer at YouTube from 2015 to 2023. He has been its CEO since February 2023.

Working on the DoubleClick brought him in contact with Susan Wojcicki, who would later become the CEO of YouTube.

"I’ve had this very long history with her and consider her one of my closest friends and mentors," Mohan told TIME.

When Wojcicki assumed leadership at YouTube, she brought Mohan along as a key ally. A handful of people knew about her cancer, including Mohan, who took over her responsibilities while she received treatment. He officially took the reins after she resigned to focus on her health and family life.