Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, is leaving her position after nine years.
She claimed in a blog post to have “decided to start a new chapter focused on my family, health and personal projects I’m passionate about”.
Neal Mohan, chief product officer at YouTube, will take over as CEO of the Google-owned video platform.
“The time is right for me, and I feel able to do this because we have an incredible leadership team in place at YouTube,” Ms Wojcicki said.
In the “short term,” Ms. Wojcicki continued, she will stay on staff at YouTube to “support Neal and help with the transition.”
She applauded Mr. Mohan’s leadership of YouTube Music, Premium, and Shorts as well as his work launching YouTube TV on her blog.
Ms. Wojcicki announced she will “take on an advising role across Google and Alphabet” at the request of Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
“This will allow me to call on my different experiences over the years to offer counsel and guidance across Google and the portfolio of Alphabet companies,” she said.
In 1998, Ms. Wojcicki got associated with Google when its founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, opened a business in the garage of her Silicon Valley home. A year later, she was hired as the company’s first marketing manager.
She has worked at Google for almost 25 years and was ranked 16th among the company’s initial 20 hires.
Throughout Ms. Wojcicki’s time at YouTube, she has come under fire from the general public for the way the site handles content moderation, the propagation of false material, and persistent privacy issues about children.
Ms. Wojcicki is the most recent in a line of prominent tech executives to quit long-standing positions.
