Twitch COO Sara Clemens to Exit After Four Years (EXCLUSIVE)

Twitch is losing of its most senior execs: Chief operating officer Sara Clemens today announced internally that she will be leaving the Amazon-owned livestreaming company, Variety has confirmed.

Clemens joined Twitch in January 2018, after previously serving as COO at Pandora and working at LinkedIn and Microsoft’s Xbox division. At an all-hands meeting Thursday, she told Twitch staffers that she is exiting in order to focus on consulting and serving on company boards.

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Clemens will remain in the COO role through mid-January 2022. Twitch will launch a search for a new COO later this year, according to a statement from CEO Emmett Shear.

“Sara has been exceptionally important to Twitch since joining the team in early 2018,” Shear said in a statement provided to Variety. “She has scaled our business operations, led our international expansion efforts, established new content verticals, built our trust and safety policy and operations globally, all while helping us navigate a period of rapid growth for the organization and the brand.”

Shear added, “I can’t thank Sara enough for everything she’s given to this company and this team — to say that she will be missed is an understatement.”

Clemens, in a statement, said: “Being a part of Twitch’s immense growth has been a privilege, and I’m grateful to Emmett for the opportunity. I have the utmost confidence that Twitch will continue to lead the Creator Economy, as it has done for the last decade.”

Clemens serves as a director on the boards of several companies, including language-learning app Duolingo (which last month launched an IPO), Khosla Ventures Acquisition Co., engineer recruiting platform Karat and social-media management provider Hootsuite. She is also an adviser to Statespace, a startup that says it uses cognitive science and AI “to revolutionize the way humans improve.”

“I have joined several boards in recent years and have had the opportunity to help these founders grow their businesses,” Clemens said in the statement. “It’s rewarding work, and I’ve decided to move out of operating roles and focus on governance and consulting full-time moving forward.”

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