huffingtonArianna Huffington is leaving her 11-year-old, eponymous progressive news site to build a new site focused on lifestyle, health and wellness content.

Huffington exits the Huffington Post to build Thrive Global, an endeavor announced in June that she originally planned to tackle while still helming the HuffPost.

"When I wrote to you in June, I fully expected to be able to continue leading HuffPost while also building Thrive Global," she wrote in a memo to staff this week. "But it became clear that this was an illusion as Thrive went from an idea to a reality, with investors, staff and offices."

AOL, now owned by Verizon, bought the Huffington Post in 2011 for $315M.

The forthcoming Thrive Global portal sprung from Huffington's books "Thrive" and "The Sleep Revolution.