LinkedIn Chief Executive Officer Jeff Weiner, who is responsible for turning the job-search company into a global social network for professional users, is stepping down after 11 years. Ryan Roslansky, currently senior vice president of product, will become CEO effective June 1.

Weiner, who also led the job search company’s sale to Microsoft in 2016, will become executive chairman, the company said Wednesday in a statement.  As CEO of LinkedIn, Ryan will report directly to Satya Nadella and join Microsoft’s senior leadership team, just as Jeff did. 

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman hired Weiner, 49, in 2008, and he brought on Roslansky later that year. Under his leadership, the company has grown from 338 to more than 16,000 employees in over 30 offices around the world, our membership base has increased from 33 million to nearly 675 million members, while revenue has increased from $78 Mn to more than $7.5 Bn in the trailing twelve months. Jeff guided LinkedIn through its IPO in 2011 and the acquisition by Microsoft in 2016.

In his new role as Executive Chairman, Jeff will continue to work to help LinkedIn realize its vision of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, support its leadership team and focus on developing the next generation of leadership within LinkedIn and building key relationships externally on behalf of the company.

In a LinkedIn post, Jeff stated, “The last eleven years have been the greatest professional experience of my life and none of it would have been possible without you, our members. Thank you for everything you've done to help manifest our vision to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Despite the scale and impact we've achieved thus far, it still feels like in many respects we're just getting started. I can't wait to see where our team and this community take it from here.”

Meanwhile, in his more than 10 years at LinkedIn, Ryan has played leadership roles in every part of LinkedIn’s business -- developing LinkedIn’s Influencer program and publishing platform, building its Marketing Solutions business, championing the acquisition of Lynda.com, and co-developing its prioritization framework for the Microsoft integration. Most recently, as its global head of product, Ryan has been a key architect in reshaping LinkedIn’s consumer and enterprise applications into a single, holistic, global ecosystem. 

As Tomer Cohen, currently Vice President of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, becomes LinkedIn’s head of product effective June 1, 2020, Ryan will be tasked with leading LinkedIn to help play a critical role in helping people effectively navigate the global economy in the 21st century.

Image Credits: Business Journal