Rand Fishkin Steps Down As The CEO Of Moz, Sarah Bird New CEO

Rand Fishkin, the cofounder of Moz, formerly known as SEOmoz, is stepping down from his role as the CEO of the company today.

Rand announced the news on his personal blog about a month ago. He said it was because he felt he was “out of his depth, and poorly suited, especially from an emotional resiliency perspective, to meeting his obligations” in that role. Rand’s new title is “individual contributor” but will continue to do what he has been doing, “product design, marketing initiatives, and evangelism” for the company.

Sarah Bird, the President and COO of the company, is taking over as the CEO. She has been with the company for 6 years and has been acting in many ways as the company’s CEO.

Of course, Rand has been the face of the company forever, and this may be a way for the company to be less about Rand and more about Moz and the other players in the company. The company has a lot of venture backing behind it and selling the company is likely one of the goals for a company like this. Rand stepping down as CEO makes this step a bit easier. Of course, Moz has not officially made any announcements about selling or being acquired.

To read more about Rand’s personal thoughts on stepping down, see his personal blog, and here is the final post from Rand as CEO with a video chat between the two of them.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.