Mic’s top business executive is leaving the company.
Mic’s top business exec is leaving the publisher after a year on the job
Jonathan Carson, who joined Mic as its president in April 2017, is headed out. The millennial-focused publisher hasn’t named a replacement.
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.
Jonathan Carson, who joined the millennial-focused startup a year ago as its president, is transitioning out of the company over the next few months, said Mic CEO Chris Altchek, who described the move as a mutual decision between Carson and the company.
“He accomplished a lot of things that he wanted to accomplish, and we realized that we didn’t need his skills anymore,” Altchek said. (Update: Altchek says he misspoke, and should have said that Carson realized Mic didn’t need his skills anymore.)
When Carson joined the company full-time in April 2017, after previously serving as an adviser, Mic said he was in charge of “management and growth of all facets of the business, including sales, marketing, business development, branded content, finance and operations.”
Altchek said the company isn’t hiring a replacement for Carson. Sarah Iooss, who Carson hired in August as head of revenue, is now Mic’s highest-ranking business exec. Prior to Mic, Carson had been chief revenue officer at Vevo, and was the CEO of Nielsen Digital.
The shuffle is worth noting because Mic is one of several digital media startups that grew quickly, raised a lot of venture capital and is now adapting to a world where Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising and the fundraising climate for media companies has become difficult.
Mic says it is in good shape, in part because of organizational changes Carson implemented over the last year, including a round of layoffs last August. Other digital publishers that cut staff over the last 12 months include BuzzFeed and Vox Media, which owns this site.
Mic, which raised $21 million last year and has raised a total of $52 million since 2011, posted its best quarter in its history in Q1 and is on track to hit a new revenue record in 2018, Altchek said; he expects Mic will hit break-even status in 2019.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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