Chad Dickerson takes over for founder Rob Kalin, who steps down a second time.

Etsy.com, the online marketplace for handmade crafts, has a new CEO. Chad Dickerson, Etsy’s chief technology officer, said this week via a blog posting that he is taking over from Rob Kalin, founder and CEO.

Kalin had previously stepped down from the Etsy CEO job in 2008 only to return the next year, taking over from Maria Thomas. Neither Dickerson nor Etsy said what Kalin’s next job would be. But Fred Wilson, a principal at Union Square Ventures, an Etsy investor, wrote on his blog that Kalin “is once again transitioning out of the day-to-day management,” after noting how the growing pains of successful companies tend to tax their founders.

Dickerson, on his blog, noted that when he joined Etsy three years ago as chief technology officer, it had 60 employees, and that its headcount has since grown to 200. He says 25 million consumers visit the marketplace each month.

“As CEO, I’m going to focus the entire company on moving faster and more purposefully, learning by doing, iterating and taking risks. That’s a long way of saying we’re going to get things done.” he writes. “I’m going to prioritize the needs of the Etsy community in the broadest sense—Etsy’s sellers, how we work with each other within the company, our local communities and everyone whose lives we touch.”

Favorite

advertisement