Online Education Startup CreativeLive Hands Over CEO Role to Founder Chase Jarvis

CreativeLive CEO Mika Salmi is stepping down from that role and handing it to co-founder Chase Jarvis, the photographer and photo app designer who started the online video education company four years ago.

After two years as CEO, Salmi’s continuing involvement in the company will be as a CreativeLive board member.

“Founders are very powerful CEOs, and at this point Chase as a founder is a great thing to have,” Salmi said today.

CreativeLive was a profitable online course provider based in Seattle and teaching live classes on topics like PhotoShop when Salmi joined two years ago.

Salmi was previously a Viacom/MTV exec after selling his company Atom Entertainment for $200 million in 2006.

Under Salmi’s guidance and with his Silicon Valley connections, CreativeLive raised $30 million in two rounds of funding, grew to 85 employees from eight and opened a big studio in San Francisco.

Jarvis said the timing of the CEO shift came from a sense of stability and a desire for CreativeLive to “own creative education.” He had many kind words for Salmi. “Riding shotgun with Mika was an incredible learning experience for me. We traveled the globe together over the past two years. He’s an amazing mentor. He was handpicked for that job and he kicked ass at that job.”

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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