Six and a half years after starting the company, Joe Cohen, the founder of aftermarket ticket exchange Seatwave, has announced that he is giving up the role of CEO to become non-executive Chairman. Interestingly, he departs from the top job before a successor has been found. Meanwhile, Louise Mullock, Seatwave’s CMO, will act as interim CEO.
In a canned statement, Cohen explains his departure as “time for me to open the next chapter in life”, though he isn’t yet saying what that may entail, citing the timing for the step down as allowing the company to “start fresh in 2013”.
However, while the timing for these things is never great, it seems a little unfortunate to leave before a permanent CEO is in place. That said, Cohen departs with Seatwave claiming to be in “great shape” and the market leader in Europe in so-called fan-to-fan (aftermarket) ticket sales.
Sonali de Rycker, of Accel Partners, a backer of Seatwave and Board member, says in a statement: “While we are sad to see Joe move out of his CEO role, we’re excited that he’ll remain close to the business at the board level. He has built Seatwave into a market leader in the European ticketing space over the past six and one-half years and is now ready to hand over operating duties. Seatwave had a record year in 2012 and we’re expecting continued scale in 2013 and beyond.”
So there you have it.
Along with Accel, the company’s investors include Atlas Venture, Mangrove Capital Partners and Fidelity Ventures, and has raised $53m to date.
Seatwave was founded in May 2006 by Cohen, who was formerly of Match.com and Ticketmaster, and began online trading in February 2007.