The Huffington Post has a new CEO.
The AOL-owned online news organization has appointed Spotify and AOL veteran Jared Grusd to the post, editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington announced in a memo to staff on Thursday. He replaces Jimmy Maymann, who earlier this week was promoted to a new role overseeing AOL’s consumer brands and Verizon’s forthcoming over-the-top service, and will report to Huffington and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.
“Jared brings an incredible range of experience to the role, and the timing couldn’t be better as HuffPost continues to expand around the world and innovate in every way,” she said in the memo.
Grusd was most recently head of business development and general counsel at music streaming service Spotify. Prior to Spotify, he led strategy and was chief business development officer at AOL. During his two years at AOL, he was integral to the company’s acquisition of the Huffington Post. “He was part of my first discussion with Tim that led to the acquisition of HuffPost, and played an instrumental role in our transition,” Huffington said.
AOL was acquired by Verizon in April, primarily for its advertising technology, leading to speculation over whether Huffington Post would remain an AOL portfolio company. Huffington put those questions to rest in June when she signed a four-year contact to remain at Huffington Post, the company she co-founded in 2005.
