Arianna Huffington, the founder of online news site the Huffington Post, has stepped down as Editor in Chief to focus on her new venture, a health-and-wellness start-up called Thrive Global.
She helped found the Huffington Post one of the pioneers in online-only publishing, in 2005.
In a note to employees on Thursday, Huffington said that she would be focusing on her new venture, a health-and-wellness start-up called Thrive Global.
“I fully expected to be able to continue leading HuffPost while also building Thrive Global,” Ms. Huffington wrote. “But it became clear that this was an illusion as Thrive went from an idea to a reality, with investors, staff and offices.”
She added: “One of the Thrive principles is knowing when it’s time for a new chapter to begin, and for me that time has arrived.”
Huffington signed a new four-year contract in June 2015 to stay on as chairwoman, president and editor in chief of The Huffington Post.
The contract allayed concerns that she would leave the company after Verizon’s $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL, The Huffington Post’s parent company.
Last month, Verizon announced that it was acquiring Yahoo’s internet business, raising questions about how Yahoo’s news business and The Huffington Post would work together.
In her note, Huffington said: “This has been a very difficult decision, but in many ways an inevitable one, given my commitment to building Thrive into a company that has a global impact on how we work and live,” she wrote.