Kickstarter CEO Shifts to Chairman Amid Executive Team Shuffle

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By Kurt Wagner2013-10-30 20:21:27 UTC

Popular crowdfunding platform Kickstarter announced that CEO Perry Chen will step away from his duties as CEO in part of a major executive shakeup announced on Wednesday.

Chen will take over as the company's chairman beginning on Jan. 1, and fellow Kickstarter cofounder and current Head of Communications Yancey Strickler is set to take over as the company's CEO.

See also: Social Web for Good: Crowdfunding Better Communities

"I’m looking forward to stepping away from the day-to-day to consider our path from a new perspective," Chen wrote in a blog post. "In the chairman role I’ll continue to offer big-picture guidance, support key projects, and assist our amazing team. I’m also looking forward to having time to work on creative projects of my own, after all these years working on an engine to support them. :)"

The company also announced that the another cofounder and head of deisgn, Charles Adler, will leave Kickstarter to spend more time with family in Chicago. Adler will continue to serve as an advisor to the company offering design advice, Chen wrote in the post.

The shuffling comes more than four years after Kickstarter launched in 2009, but Chen mentions in the blog post that the idea for the company began many years prior, in 2005.

"When the three of us started working on Kickstarter, we believed (in that way founders must believe) that we were working on something special," he wrote. "It was impossible to imagine where it would lead, but we believed enough to bet a big part of our lives on it."

Kickstarter has long claimed that the company has no intentions of filing an IPO, often an unfavorable stance for company investors. But Wednesday's executive shift does not appear to be a result of investor meddling. Kickstarter investor Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures addressed this issue in a blog post of his own Wednesday afternoon.

"Like all things that involve Kickstarter, this is a classic Perry move," Wilson wrote. "Perry and Kickstarter have always done things their way, and today's news is another example of that."

The news comes exactly one week after the Secutirites and Exchange Commission put forth the preliminary set of rules for a new version of crowdfunding known as "equity crowdfunding." The rules, when finalized, will allow regular investors to support startups via crowdfunding in exchange for company equity in replace of perks.

Kickstarter has routinely stated that it will not offer equity crowdfunding to its campaigners, and a spokesperson confirmed that this change does not alter that stance.

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Image: Kickstarter

Topics: Business, ceo, crowdfunding, kickstarter, perry chen, Startups, Yancey Strickler