Pictured: Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post
The founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, is to step down from the role in order to concentrate on a new start-up in the wellness space called Thrive Global.
Huffington, who in 2014 was listed by Forbes as the 52nd Most Powerful Woman in the World, launched the Huffington Post in 2005 as a liberal American online news aggregator.
The site grew a massive international following with many localised editions and it was acquired in 2011 by AOL for $315m in cash.
Huffington, who was born in Athens, Greece, as Ariadnē-Anna Stasinopoúlou, studied economics at Cambridge and became the third female president of the Cambridge Union.
She began writing books in the 1970s, including The Female Woman, as well as biographies of Maria Callas and Pablo Picasso.
She rose to prominence in the US in the 1990s when she made an unsuccessful bid for the US Senate.
Her new start-up Thrive Global is named after her book Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, which focuses on helping people get the most out of their sleep patterns.
The start-up has received an undisclosed amount of Series A funding.
Thrive Global will make revenue through e-courses, seminars, and coaching, to help people achieve wellness.
Its mantra is that by reducing stress and exhaustion it is possible to improve health and increase productivity.
Huffington’s next big step
“When publishing Thrive and then The Sleep Revolution, I’ve dreamt of taking the next big step to help transform the way we work and live,” Huffington said.
“When I decided to create Thrive Global, I thought it would be possible to build a start-up and continue as editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post. Today, it’s clear that was an illusion.
“As Thrive Global moved from an idea to a reality, with investors, staff and offices, it became clear to me that I simply couldn’t do justice to both companies.
“Change is desperately needed if another generation is to avoid the burnout that all too often comes with success today. That’s why I’m filled with excitement at the prospect of devoting the rest of my life to accelerating the cultural shift away from merely surviving and succeeding to thriving.
“Running both companies would have involved working around the clock, which would be a betrayal of the very principles of Thrive I’ve been writing and speaking about.
“To truly thrive means knowing that the time ahs come to close one chapter and start the next and, for me, that time has arrived, “ Huffington said.
Arianna Huffington image Via Shutterstock
