Steve Alperin, chief business officer at the news startup Vocativ, has left the outlet effective immediately, he confirmed to Poynter Friday.
Alperin, who joined Vocativ in February 2013, was previously an editor-at-large at Newscorp and a managing editor at ABC News, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In an email to Poynter, Alperin said the parting was amicable and motivated by a desire to go into business for himself.
I love building these companies and I am super passionate about the next generation of video online. Which is why I’m returning to my own creative agency, DSA Digital. There’s a big open area where there is value to be created, targeting younger consumers not currently being served by the existing media and news landscape.
In January, Vocativ underwent a reorganization of its leadership ranks in advance of a planned staff increase. The company hired Gregory Gittrich as its chief content officer and announced that he and the startup’s other executives would report to a leadership committee chaired by Vivian Schiller, who was formerly head of news partnerships at Twitter.
Schiller announced news of Alperin’s departure Friday in a memo to employees.
“Steve has been a key leader at Vocativ since its earliest days helping drive our business including the collaboration with MSNBC,” Schiller wrote. “His hard work and creativity will be missed by us all.”
After Gittrich joined Vocativ, he outlined plans to grow the startup’s editorial staff in 2015. The company has since hired an editorial director and hashed out a series of beats including national security, technology, gender, culture, criminal justice and real-time news. Vocativ also announced several staff appointments last month before cutting several editorial positions.
