India’s imprint on global tech grows as YouTube CEO Neal Mohan wins Time award

Neal Mohan, the soft-spoken technologist who leads YouTube, has been named Time’s CEO of the Year, underscoring the rising influence of a platform that continues to reshape global entertainment and advertising.

Time described Mohan as a “quiet-spoken” and deliberative leader whose understated style belies the scale of the operation he oversees. Since taking charge in 2023, after long-time chief executive Susan Wojcicki stepped down, Mohan has steered YouTube deeper into the attention economy amid intensifying competition across streaming, social media and television.

Under his leadership, YouTube has expanded its reach on the biggest screen in the home. Time reported that half the platform’s viewing now takes place on TV sets, fuelled by the rapid growth of YouTube TV and the ubiquity of its free app. Shorts, YouTube’s answer to TikTok and Reels, now attracts roughly 2 billion logged-in monthly users, placing it alongside the short-form leaders.

YouTube has also cemented its role in spoken-word content. According to Time, a third of podcast fans now say it is their primary listening platform, surpassing Spotify. In sport, the company’s deal to stream NFL Sunday Ticket and its first global livestream this year have drawn traditional broadcasters into tense negotiations over rights and carriage fees.

Mohan’s rise reflects his long track record in digital advertising and platform strategy. Before joining YouTube, he helped shape Google’s ad business following its acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007—an integration he helped orchestrate. Time noted that his reputation inside Google as a problem-solver earned him the nickname “the Wolf”, a reference to the fixer in Pulp Fiction.

Since assuming the top job, Mohan has championed the creator economy as a core engine of YouTube’s growth. The platform paid out more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies between 2021 and 2023, and its executive team expects both advertising and subscription revenue to keep rising. In the first three quarters of this year, advertising revenue grew 15%, while subscribers to YouTube Music and Premium rose 25% year on year, Time reported.

Mohan has also overseen an aggressive expansion into AI-enabled tools aimed at lowering the barriers to content creation. Time said YouTube unveiled more than 30 such features this year, including tools that can auto-edit videos, generate songs from text prompts and dub content across languages to widen creator reach.

Yet YouTube’s scale brings mounting scrutiny. Time highlighted legal challenges involving deepfake scams, debates over content moderation and the tension between creator payouts and user experience. Mohan recently reinstated some creators banned during the pandemic, arguing that policies must evolve with scientific understanding and societal context.

He has also faced geopolitical and regulatory pressures, including new limits on youth access in countries such as Australia. Mohan told Time that safeguarding young users remains a personal priority.

Despite these headwinds, analysts cited by Time say Mohan’s command of both technology and media makes him one of the most consequential executives in the global content ecosystem. His leadership, they argue, will shape how billions of people consume information, entertainment and culture.

As YouTube pushes deeper into AI, live sport, long-form programming and television, the next phase of Mohan’s tenure will test whether his calm, methodical style can guide the platform through an era of rapid technological disruption and volatile public trust.