Arianna Huffington to Leave Huffington Post for New Venture

Arianna Huffington, the sometimes controversial media mogul who co-founded the Huffington Post more than a decade ago, says she will soon be leaving the publication to launch another start-up focusing on health and wellness.

"I really thought I could do both, but as we started building it up, I realized that it really needed my full attention," she said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "It is important to know when one door closes and another opens and I felt that moment had arrived."

In a note to Huffington Post staffers, she echoed those sentiments, saying, "Building something from scratch doesn't become easier or less challenging just because you've done it before. There is only one way to do it: with your full attention and all your heart."

As The Wall Street Journal published its story, Huffington took to Twitter, saying, "I thought HuffPost would be my last act. But I've decided to step down as HuffPost's editor-in-chief to run my new venture, Thrive Global."

Huffington occasionally clashed with the management of AOL, which owns Huffington Post, including CEO Tim Armstrong. In a statement, Armstrong called Huffington a visionary, but indicated that Huffington's departure would not have an impact on the company's goals.

"Arianna is a visionary who built The Huffington Post into a truly transformative news platform," Armstrong said in a statement. "AOL and Verizon are committed to continuing its growth and the groundbreaking work Arianna pioneered."

He added: "The Huffington Post has been working on a next generation strategy over the last few months and the CEO of the Huffington Post, Jared Grusd, will lead the implementation and communication of the plan, which focuses on scaling news and video on an even more global basis."

This story is developing and will be updated.

[Photo credit: Rappaport Center via Flickr Commons]