Charlie Tillinghast

Charlie Tillinghast, the NBCNews.com executive in Redmond who was the longtime president of msnbc.com, plans to leave his position at the end of the year as part of a series of management changes following the unwinding of the joint venture between Microsoft and NBC this summer.

Also departing is Jennifer Sizemore, the NBCNews.com editor-in-chief, another msnbc.com veteran.

With the dissolution of the joint venture, the former msnbc.com operations have gone from being a relatively autonomous operation to being part of a larger organization as NBCNews.com. Both executives’ roles would have changed significantly if they had decided to stick around.

Tillinghast had been with the company for 13 years. He announced the news internally yesterday. “The choice to leave is mine,” he explained in a memo to employees. “I thrived in the freedom, flexibility, and accountability that running a relatively small, joint venture company allowed, while benefiting from the scale of our parents. Going forward, a new set of opportunities and challenges exists within a vastly larger corporation that calls for a different kind of executive.”

Originally from Idaho, Tillinghast says he hopes to stay in Northwest, but the decision will depend on where he finds his next opportunity.

In an announcement out of New York yesterday, NBC News Digital made a series of new executive appointments, saying that NBCNews.com will be overseen by Gregory Gittrich as vice president and executive editor.

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