Birthday: 6th July 1968
Who is Susan Wojcicki?
Susan Wojcicki is currently the CEO of Youtube, a famous video-sharing website. Wojcicki finished her master’s degree in Business Administration and began her career as a consultant in R.B. Webber & Company and Bain & Company.
She was also appointed as the first marketing manager of Google, whereby her dedication made her reach the top. Thus, she became the Senior Vice President of Advertising & Commerce.
Moreover, Wojcicki managed the two largest websites owned by Google namely DoubleClick and Youtube. Because of her influence and contributions, Wojcicki was named on Forbes list as one of ‘The World's 100 Most Powerful Women’ and ranked number six in 2017.
She is also a social activist. She supported programs, such as organizing school coding (a program against gender discrimination in technology companies), an increase of paid leaves for parents, and extended support for Syrian refugees.
Facts about Susan Wojcicki:
- Susan Wojcicki was the 16th employee of Google and her work started in her garage for a few months.
- She’s the brain behind the creative idea to transform Google Adwords into a self-service program.
- Another brilliant innovation that she applied was Google's search engine. Her idea started in universities by incorporating Google search bars in schools’ websites.
- Wojcicki’s leadership role extended to many YouTube creators and they have been inspired by her dedication to involve them and acknowledge their needs.
- She also influenced creators to adapt to virtual reality, 3-D content.
- Wojcicki is an optimist and has proven that being a CEO while being a parent is possible. She has been able to balance and maintain a good life in both worlds.
Inspirational Quotes of Susan Wojcicki
“Work Smart. Get things done. No nonsense. Move fast.”
“Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. 'Here, open it, it's perfect. You'll love it.' Opportunities-the good ones are messy, confusing, and hard to recognize. They're risky. They challenge you.”
“Things are always changing. Part of being successful here is being comfortable with not knowing what's going to happen.”
Biography of Susan Wojcicki
Childhood and Early Life
Susan Wojcicki was born on the 5th of July 1968 in California. Her father is Stanley Wojcicki, a Polish American, and a professor. Her mother is Jewish, Esther Wojcicki, who is also an educator and a journalist. Furthermore, Susan has two sisters namely Janet Wojcicki, an epidemiologist, and Anne Wojcicki, an entrepreneur.
Susan was an exceptional school newspaper writer at Gunn High School. In 1990, she finished her degree at Harvard University, majoring in literature and history. At first, her plan was to pursue a career as a professor, so she aimed to achieve a higher education (Ph.D.) in economics. However, her journey shifted after discovering the world of technology.
In 1993, Susan completed her master’s degree in economics at the University of California. Also, in 1998, she obtained her master’s degree in Business Administration from UCLA.
Career
Wojcicki had her first job in Bain & Company and in R.B. Webber as a consultant for management. Also, she worked as part of the marketing department in Intel which is located in California.
In 1998, while Wojcicki was in California, she offered her own garage to Sergey Brin and Larry Page so they could establish an office. On September 4, the American international company, specializing in technology, specifically Internet-related services and products became functional.
Wojcicki then became the first head of the marketing department in Google in 1999. After putting her efforts into Google doodles and marketing programs, she began to develop services, which were Google Books and Google Images. These services were launched in the year 2001 and 2004 respectively.
Her contributions in developing Google gave her the right to become the Advertising & Commerce Senior Vice-President. She managed the advertising and analytic products of Google, which includes Adwords, Google Analytics, CPC (cost-per-click), and AdSense.
Later on, she became the head of video services. However, in 2005, the founders of Youtube started to compete against Google services, so Wojcicki proposed to acquire YouTube. She was successful in acquiring YouTube which cost Google more than a billion dollars in 2006.
In the next year, Google had another major acquisition, which was DoubleClick, costing Google 3.1 billion dollars.
In 2014, she then became the CEO of the said online video platform. Since her promotion, she increased the salary of her female employees to 24 to 30%.
Legacy and Honors
In August 1998, Wojcicki became the spouse of Dennis Troper from Belmont, California. As a mother, Wojcicki remained to be an advocate of recompensed parental leave. She believes in the importance of family and work-life balance.
In December 2014, she wrote an opinion and editorial page in the Wall Street Journal about the value of financed maternity leave.
