TIME names YouTube chief Neal Mohan as 2025 CEO of the Year

New Delhi: YouTube’s chief executive Neal Mohan has been named TIME’s 2025 CEO of the Year, with the publication profiling the Indian-origin leader’s role in shaping the platform’s growing cultural influence.

In its feature, TIME wrote, “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.”

The magazine described YouTube as a space where “everyone comes and plants whatever nourishing or noxious plants they care to”, noting how the platform’s expanding reach shapes what people consume.

TIME characterised Mohan, who took over as CEO in 2023, as “surprisingly mellow”, adding that “He’s quiet-spoken, deliberative, hard to ruffle.” The profile detailed his interests, saying he enjoys sports and family activities and will readily appear in creator videos, “He won’t be great in it, but neither will he be horrible.”

The publication also cited Mohan’s remarks on the shifting media ecosystem. “The entire dynamics of the entire media industry are changing before our eyes... It’s incredibly disruptive, and if you don’t adapt, you can be left by the wayside,” he said.

On YouTube’s content policy approach, he added: “The fundamental North Star of how I think about content policies and moderation in general on YouTube is to give everyone a voice.”

Mohan spent his early childhood in the United States before relocating to Lucknow in 1985 at the age of 12. TIME highlighted his reflections on learning Sanskrit, “It’s incredibly phonetic and rules-oriented... It was like learning computer programming, basically.” The profile added that supporting people in expressing themselves remains one of his core values.