Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton is leaving the company to become the chairman of the board of Snapchat, officially called Snap Inc. Lynton’s move comes as Snapchat prepares for an initial public offering this year, which could value the company at more than $25 billion.
Lynton will give up his current position at Sony’s movie and television unit on February 2 but remain as co-CEO for six months to help find a successor, Japanese conglomerate Sony Corp said in a statement on Friday.
“Today i will be announcing my resignation from Sony to focus on my position as Chairman of the Board of Snap Inc.,” Lynton wrote in a memo to Sony employees. “This was not an easy decision for me, and one that I arrived at after long and careful consideration.”
“As some of you are already aware, I have been involved with Snapchat since its early days. Given Snapchat’s growth and my growing role and responsibilities in it, I recently determined that the time was right to make a change,” Lynton added.
Snap, the owner of the popular Snapchat app, is expected to go public early this year, vying for a $25 billion valuation. Lynton was an early investor in the company co-founded by 26-year-old CEO Evan Spiegel, and has served on its board for nearly four years.
The Venice, California-based company has made a push into news and entertainment content, a strategy that heightened competition with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. In 2015, it began sharing video and articles from TV networks such as CNN and ESPN on a feature called Snapchat Discover.
Late last year, Snapchat, which has more than 150 million daily users, released a limited quantity of its first hardware product, called “Spectacles,” sunglasses with a built in camera that can take and share brief videos to Snapchat. The company is expected to generate revenue of nearly $1 billion this year, according to eMarketing firm. Some of Snapchat’s investors include Benchmark Capital, Alibaba , Fidelity and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
