Huffington Post Co-Founder Resigns To Join Wellness Startup

NEWS BRIEF Arianna Huffington, the founder and editor in chief of the Huffington Post, said Thursday she will step down as head of the company to switch her focus to her health and wellness start-up.

Tweeting about her departure, Huffington said that building something from the scratch doesn’t get easir just because one has doesn’t something similar to it.

She, however, stated that the contract broadened her horizons and helped her to launch her new company “Thrive Global” even as she continued in her role at the site.

The Huffington Post was launched on 9 May, 2005, pulling together liberal-leaning news reports, and as an alternative to conservative news aggregators such as the Drudge Report.

Subsequently, Verizon’s acquisition of AOL past year raised questions as to Huffington ‘s status with the company, reinforced by her own announcement several months ago of her interest in starting a new business. The deal was supposed to be the defining point to keep Huffington at the helm, but her new venture proved to be too much of a draw to keep her at the Post.

In addition to aggregating news, the Huffington Post features original reporting and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for a series on wounded war veterans.

“To everyone at HuffPost: it’s you who make HuffPost what it is”. Arianna said that she believed that she could carry with both projects, but she now understands that Thrive Global needs her full attention.

She moved to America and in 1986 married Texas oil billionaire Michael Huffington. Huffington-who has published two books, “Thrive” and “The Sleep Revolution”, on managing work-life balance and redefining success based on personal well-being-said the company has already begun piloting trainings and workshops with Accenture.

Huffington’s leadership has been called into question in recent months due to worries over her decision-making and focus on side ventures.

Lerer was co-founder of the Huffington Post and Hippeau was its CEO when it was acquired by AOL. AOL was then bought by Verizon a year ago for $4.4 billion. Blue Pool Capital, Advancit Capital, Greycroft Partners and entrepreneur Sean Parker also made investments.

Arianna Huffington attends the 2015 “Party in the Garden” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, New York, USA, June 2 2015.

Tim Armstrong, AOL chief executive, said that thanks to Arianna, the Huffington Post was a “firmly established and celebrated news source”.