You probably visit YouTube all the time. Where else would you get all your cat videos, news bloopers, and footage of babies eating lemons for the first time? But you might not have given much thought to the people who run the site.
YouTube is owned by Google, of course. Which means that on the corporate side, it’s run by a lot of men sitting on bean bags. That is, until today, when YouTube scored its new female leader.
A corporate computing genius named Susan Wojcicki has just been appointed CEO of YouTube. She replaces Salar Kamangar.
This is stunning news, considering the technology industry is one of the single hardest places for a woman to work in the world. So, if you’ve been not the lookout for a new role model, Susan Wojcicki’s your lady.
In a statement, Google CEO Larry Page said this: “… Susan has a healthy disregard for the impossible and is excited about improving YouTube in ways that people will love.” Apart from that, we have very clues as to what the new CEO has planned for YouTube.
So let’s get better acquainted with this swashbuckling tech icon.
Before this huge appointment, Wojcicki was the senior vice president of ads and commerce at Google. She graduated with honours in history and literature from Harvard University in 1990, she has a masters in economics from the University of California in 1993, and a masters in business administration from UCLA in 1998.
She’s 45 years old, married to a Google executive called Dennis Trooper – and the power couple have four children.
The coolest fact about Susan? When two guys called Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed a place to work in the ’90s, she lent them her garage as a makeshift office. And that’s where they founded a little thing called Google.
She became Google’s 16th employee and continued to work out of that garage before it became a global tech giant.
Since then she’s pretty much been collecting accolades and kicking career goals. She’s currently #30 on Forbes Most Powerful Women list, down from #25 in 2012 (and she’ll zoom right up that list with this new CEO gig). She’s been called “the most important Googler you’ve never heard of” and “the most important person in advertising” for her work establishing Google’s ad products, AdSense and AdWords and Analytics.
She’s a major asset on the Google team already, with reports saying she’s responsible for 87% of the company’s income in 2012. That’s a cool $43,5 billion, by the way.
The most important thing to remember about this news? Susan Wojcicki is not just kicking her own career goals here. She’s changing the game for any other woman who might want to do the same. Just like Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer before her.
And for that, Susan, we owe you a beer next time you’re in town.
Top Comments
I REALLY want to contradict the statement that "technology industry is one of the single hardest places for a woman to work in the world". No, no, no, no, no. It is one of the BEST places for women to work and often one of the most flexible. The relatively few number of women in it owe to the fact that less women study the basic maths etc needed, then don't select it at uni as it is seen as male dominated.
I used to work in IT and while I know plenty of women who have struggled due to the male dominated nature I know so many more who have flourished. This is an industry women, particularly those who want a family, should consider and it is great to see more high profile women taking a role that will hopefully inspire more girls to enter the industry.
I work in IT and have to agree, although I wonder if it's just my boss being so great and flexible or just the IT industry in general? (This is my first job in IT and... I'm in the projects dept, I don't actually do anything IT)
But it's very flexible, esp with picking kids up from school and even letting them in the office when there's no other options. Can't imagine ever having a job this good again...
Oh a more important note, Hooray for Susan! She sounds fabulous!
I'm not going to say that every boss and every workplace is that flexible but from my experience that kind of flexibility is very common. Seriously ladies, the IT industry is awesome and really very different from the stereotypes.
I was just going to reply to that as well. My wife and I both work in IT and although it is a male dominated industry it is for the most part very female friendly. There are certain segments (startups) that have a reputation for being hard for women, but they probably make up less than 5% of IT jobs. Almost all my employment history I have had bosses who have been very family friendly and in my currently employment we have a few staff who work part time as it suits them. In fact tomorrow I am working from home because my son has just had his tonsils out. I would say to any parents if you want to direct your kids to a career with very good employment prospects and wages ($100k+ after 6-8 years is common in major cities) and a job were you get to use problem solving skills daily in a nice office environment then IT is the way to go. You don't need to be an uber geek to work in IT, in fact very few are.
Great, and now I want a bagel. Oh, but very good news too.