Industry Moves: NPR's Digital Head Maria Thomas Leaving; Joining Etsy As COO

You're reading it here first: NPR's longtime digital head Maria Thomas is leaving the company. She will be joining the happening e-commerce site Etsy, as the COO. The announcement was made internally today, and I confirmed it with Thomas.

Thomas was the head of digital for more than six years, and was responsible for NPR's multiple forays into digital, including its early jump into podcasting and developing NPR's online music efforts. Prior to joining NPR in 2001, Thomas spent three years at Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN), and played a key role in launching its camera and photo store.

This comes a month after former CEO Ken Stern left and a new interim CEO Dennis L. Haarsager took over. "It is about an opportunity for me, and not much to do with NPR," she said. NPR will search for a replacement.

Etsy, based in Brooklyn, NY, was founded in 2005, and serves as a marketplace for handmade goods...it has received much attention from early adopters and earlier this year raised a big $27 million second round of in funding from Union Square Ventures, Hubert Burda Media, and Accel Partners.

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