Shishir Mehrotra

CEO of Superhuman

Shishir Mehrotra is chief executive officer of Superhuman, the company that was known as Grammarly until its rebrand in October 2025. Walmart's board announcement in January 2026 describes him in exactly those terms and credits him with more than 25 years in technology. Walmart's board page adds that before Superhuman he co-founded and led Coda and, earlier, served as YouTube's chief product officer and chief technology officer.^[1][2]

The Coda years

Before Grammarly, Mehrotra spent roughly a decade building Coda, which he co-founded with Alex DeNeui, a fellow MIT undergraduate. VentureBeat reported that Coda made its public debut on February 4, 2019, after about five years of development and months of private beta, and that it had raised $60 million from investors including Greylock, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures and NEA.^[3]

TechCrunch later put Coda's valuation at $1.4 billion following a 2021 financing round. In December 2024 Grammarly announced it would acquire Coda without disclosing terms, with Mehrotra succeeding Rahul Roy-Chowdhury as Grammarly's CEO. Roy-Chowdhury stayed on as an adviser.^[4]

From Grammarly to Superhuman

The Coda deal was the first step in an effort to turn a writing assistant into a broader work platform. TechCrunch described Mehrotra's plan to merge Coda and Grammarly and layer in company knowledge, generative AI chat, a full productivity suite and many software agents. Constellation Research later covered a second acquisition, the AI email app Superhuman, which it framed as giving the company a native email surface from which to run agents that triage mail, schedule meetings and draft messages.^[4][5]

In October 2025 the combined business renamed itself Superhuman and packaged four products under that name: the Grammarly writing assistant, the Superhuman Mail inbox, the Coda workspace and Superhuman Go, a platform of AI agents. BetaKit reported about 40 million weekly users and roughly $700 million in annual revenue, along with a $1 billion growth financing from General Catalyst earmarked for sales, marketing and acquisitions.^[6]

Earlier career: Microsoft and YouTube

Spotify's 2026 shareholder filing lists Mehrotra's prior roles as director of program management at Microsoft and chief product and technology officer for YouTube at Google. An Atlassian conference speaker bio adds detail: six years at Microsoft in leadership roles across the Windows, Office and SQL Server divisions, and six years as an executive overseeing the YouTube product while it grew into the largest video destination in the world. The same bio says he was the founding CEO of Centrata and received Technology Review's TR35 award in 2012.^[7][8]

Boards: Walmart and Spotify

Walmart named Mehrotra to its board effective January 8, 2026. He serves on the Compensation and Management Development Committee and the Technology and eCommerce Committee. Chairman Greg Penner credited him with an unusual mix of technical depth and product leadership, while Lead Independent Director Randall Stephenson pointed to the perspective of a proven builder. Mehrotra called the arrival of agentic AI the most significant technology shift of his career.^[1]

He has been on Spotify's board since June 13, 2017, after serving as strategic adviser to its chief executive from December 2015 to May 2017. The company's 2026 meeting materials recommended his re-election, describe him as independent under NYSE rules and place him on its People Experience and Compensation Committee.^[7]

Education

Mehrotra studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning bachelor's degrees in both computer science and mathematics.^[2][7]

Why he matters

Mehrotra is one of the few executives who has led product at a platform of YouTube's scale, founded and sold a productivity company, and then taken over a larger company through that sale. His current bet, that the writing tool millions already use can become the surface for AI agents across email, documents and chat, is a direct test of whether an incumbent with distribution can beat newer AI-native entrants. Board seats at Walmart and Spotify put him in the room for the same questions at two other very different businesses.^[1][6][7]

On The Executive List

Shishir Mehrotra is ranked No. 70 on The Executive List (October 2026) in the Chief Technology Officers discipline. The ranking reflects The Executive Review's own editorial Trending Score; it is not an outside award, and placement on the list is never sold. View the October 2026 edition.