BuzzFeed president Marcela Martin to resign

BuzzFeed

29/12/2023 15:47

Dec 29 (Reuters) - BuzzFeed's  BZFD.O  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. 

 (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh
Kuber)
 ((Jaspreet.Singh@thomsonreuters.com; https://twitter.com/i_jass;))