Gunjan Soni to lead YouTube India: A look at her 2 decade career in tech, media, e-commerce

New Delhi: YouTube has appointed Gunjan Soni as the Country Managing Director for India. 

With over two decades of experience spanning McKinsey, Star India, Myntra, Jabong, and Southeast Asia’s fashion e-commerce giant Zalora, Soni’s appointment marks a significant move as YouTube strengthens its leadership bench to tap deeper into India's booming creator economy and rapidly evolving digital content landscape.

Soni started her career as a software engineer before moving into management consulting. She spent nearly a decade at McKinsey & Company, where she rose to Partner in the Consumer and Marketing Practices division, advising some of the world’s leading brands on business strategy and growth.

In 2014, Soni joined Star India (now part of Disney Star) as Executive Vice-President - Strategy. She played a key role in the company's digital initiatives, most notably contributing to the launch and early success of Hotstar.

Soni later moved to the fast-growing fashion e-commerce space, joining Myntra as Chief Marketing Officer. She subsequently took over as CEO of Jabong after its acquisition by Myntra. Here, she led brand building, marketing innovation, and profit and loss management, driving strong customer acquisition and retention strategies in a highly competitive market.

In 2019, she was appointed Group CEO of Zalora, Southeast Asia’s leading fashion e-commerce platform, headquartered in Singapore. During her tenure, Zalora diversified into new product categories, revamped its customer experience through personalization and loyalty programs, and accelerated profitability initiatives across multiple markets.

Soni holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Government Engineering College, Bhopal, and an MBA in Finance and Strategy from XLRI Jamshedpur.

She also sits on the Board of Directors of CBRE Group, the global real estate services giant, where she contributes strategic guidance on technology and innovation-driven growth.

At YouTube India, Soni will be responsible for building on the platform’s immense popularity while navigating the next phase of growth driven by regional content, short-form videos (YouTube Shorts), live commerce, and creator monetisation initiatives.

Soni’s appointment comes at a critical juncture for YouTube, which faces intensifying competition from rivals such as Instagram Reels, MX TakaTak, and OTT giants. Her deep cross-industry experience — from OTT to commerce — is expected to help YouTube innovate beyond traditional video and tap into India's burgeoning creator economy, vernacular content surge, and the evolving digital advertising landscape.

India is YouTube’s largest market by user base, with over 500 million monthly active users. With Soni at the helm, the platform is expected to sharpen its focus on expanding regional content offerings, strengthening its creator support programs, and deepening brand and advertiser partnerships in the country.