Huffington Post founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington to step down to run new health venture
MEDIA mogul Arianna Huffington, who co-founded the liberal news website , is to step down and launch a health startup called Thrive Global.
Arianna, 66, told staff she would be giving up her role at the media company after closing a funding round for Thrive last week.
She said: "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."
In a statement, Arianna added: "When I decided to create Thrive Global, I thought it would be possible to build a startup 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."
The new project is designed to tackle stress and burnout.
Arianna has published numerous books focusing on health and sleep issues and spent an increasing amount of time this year devoted to lectures on the subjects.
The Huffington Post was luanched in May 2005, putting together liberal-leaning reports and providing an alternative to right-wing news aggregators like the .
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She launched the site with American businessman Kenneth Lerer and other investors.
Across all nine international sites, there are 81million monthly unique visitors.
The UK edition was launched in 2011.
The same year, the site was bought for $315m (£243m) by AOL and Arianna was made president and editor-in-chief.
Tim Armstrong, AOL Chief Executive, said: "Arianna is a visionary who built the Huffington Post into a truly transformative news platform.
"Today, the Huffington Post is a firmly established and celebrated news source and AOL and Verizon are committed to continuing its growth and the groundbreaking work Arianna pioneered."
However, her time at the company was not without controversy.
The Post's practice of not paying many of its contributors brought criticism and in 2011 the National Writers Union and the News Guild called for a boycott of the site.
Despite regularly drawing millions of unique visitors, the site has also failed consistently to turn a profit.
In a memo, Mr Armstrong said an interim editorial committee will fill Arianna's role while helping search for a new editor-in-chief.
Arianna said there had been discussions for her to continue in some role, but she instead decided to leave in the next two or three weeks.
She married Texas oil billionaire Michael Huffington in 1986 and played a major role in his election to the US House of Representatives in 1992 as a Republican candidate.
However, Arianna left the party in 1996 and divorced her husband the following year - a major part of her journey towards the left.