BuzzFeed president Marcela Martin to resign

(Reuters) – BuzzFeed’s Marcela Martin has announced her intention to resign as president effective Jan. 12 to pursue other opportunities, the digital media firm said on Friday.

The company is unlikely to look for a replacement as the president’s responsibilities will be absorbed by the CEO and other executives.

Martin’s departure, which comes closely after the exit of CFO Felicia DellaFortuna in November, was not due to any disagreement with the company, BuzzFeed said in a regulatory filing.

BuzzFeed, which shuttered its news unit in April, was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Johnson, and went public in 2021 through a blank-check merger.

The news division of BuzzFeed was once viewed as a serious challenger to legacy media companies and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for coverage of China’s mass detention of Muslims, but it failed to find a working business model and was a consistent money loser.

Like other digital media outlets, BuzzFeed’s reliance on advertising made it susceptible to downturns as marketers shifted to TikTok and other social media platforms.

Ozy Media sued BuzzFeed along with another news media outlet Semafor and its founder Ben Smith last week for allegedly stealing trade secrets from the now-shuttered U.S. media and entertainment company.