Mohamed Nanabhay, the head of Al Jazeera English’s website, has resigned from the company, according to people at the network.
Al Jazeera has seen a number of staffing changes in the last year, the most prominent of which was a change at the top when Wadah Khanfar stepped down as director general.
Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani, Al Jazeera’s new director general and a member of Qatar’s ruling family, has since announced corporate restructuring and made an evident push to hire more Qataris at the international news organization. There have also been a couple resignations in the Arabic channel over its coverage of the Syrian uprising.
Nanabhay (my ex-boss), who took over the AJE website in July 2009, is also the lesser-known co-founder of local listings and community website Qatar Living. No word yet if he’ll be joining Khanfar at the former Al Jazeera chief’s new think-tank Sharq Forum or doing something else entirely. But a tweet to Middle East entrepreneur Habib Hadad could indicate another start-up in the works.
UPDATE: On his Tumblr account, Nanabhay recounts his 7.5 years at the Al Jazeera Network, but offers little detail of why he’s resigned, or what he’s doing next, save to say:
Now its time for me to move on to build the next big thing. Follow me on Twitter and you’ll be the first to know the details.
Al Jazeera’s Public Relations department, meanwhile, has posted some of the comments made by AJE Managing Director Al Anstey about the resignation:
“I’d like to thank Mohamed for all his work over the last seven plus years at Al Jazeera. This period was a formative one for the internet as a whole.
Not only did he chart our path through that, he kept us in pole position with a range of cutting edge online news initiatives. We’re sure he’ll continue being successful in his future endeavors.”
As Al Jazeera, and specifically its English offerings, continue to rise in prominence, another key question will be who steps up to take his place.
Credit: Photo by Joi Ito