• by Sara Guaglione , January 29, 2016

Politico co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei, top political reporter Mike Allen and other key employees will leave the Washington D.C. political news Web site later this year, according to a staff memo written by Politico founder and publisher Robert Allbritton.

Sources told The Washington Post, New York Times and Huffington Post that there were rumors VandeHei was clashing with Politico ownership -- primarily with Allbritton -- about Politico’s expansion, spending, budgets and management strategies.

COO Kim Kingsley, CRO Roy Schwartz and executive vice president for expansion Danielle Jones are also leaving Politico in 2016.VandeHei, Allen and Schwartz will leave after the 2016 presidential election; Kingsley and Jones will leave before the end of summer.

Politico editor-in-chief John Harris will add the role of publisher to his responsibilities.

Allbritton will take on the title of CEO later this year.

"I have been eager to make the strategic direction of Politico my primary professional focus," Allbritton wrote in the memo.

Susan Glasser, Politico’s editor, will continue to run the Washington newsroom until the end of the year before becoming director of innovation. She will continue in the role when she likely moves to Israel to follow her husband, Peter Baker, tapped to become The New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief.

Glasser will also launch a weekly foreign-affairs column.

“These transitions make perfect sense for the publication, coming a decade (almost to the day) after I recruited them to join this cause,” Allbritton wrote in the memo.

Allbritton said VandeHei “began signaling to me some years ago that he hoped the next stop in his career would be to once again start a new venture.”

In his own staff memo, VandeHei wrote that he “caught the entrepreneurial bug a decade ago when we started this place and can't seem to shake it.”

VandeHei added that he plans to start a new venture. A source told the New York Times that VandeHei, Allen and Schwartz will work on it together. It will not be a competitor to Politico.

Allbritton wrote that VandeHei’s exit has been discussed for nearly a year.

Though the news of the exit of these five influential names in Washington, D.C.’s media world shocked the industry, Allbritton used the opportunity as a springboard to announce new opportunities coming soon.

“We are about to experience the most exciting, and I expect most enjoyable, period of expansion in 10 years. With our revenue rapidly expanding, I am eager to make robust new investments in editorial quality, in technology, in business talent, and in new markets that we have not yet conquered,” he wrote.

In his memo, VandeHei alluded to Allbritton’s “big ideas for the publication, including a new burst of investment,” which he said will be unveiled in the months ahead.

VandeHei added that he is leaving “knowing a template for growth has been set, a first-class leadership team assembled and prepared for this transition, and Politico is powerful and durable enough to outlast us all.”

The brand has been working on a significant expansion in Europe, where Politico sent a number of personnel in a partnership with German publisher Axel Springer. Politico now has more than 40 journalists in Europe, with bureaus in Brussels, London, Berlin and Paris.

In 2015, Politico added nearly 150 employees, bringing the total headcount to about 500.

VandeHei became CEO in October 2013, following the company’s purchase of Capital New York, a politics and media site that Politico used to expand its coverage of statehouse politics by opening bureaus in New Jersey and Florida.

VandeHei and Harris worked at The Washington Post together when they came up with the idea for Politico. When The Washington Post didn’t back their venture, they found Allbritton to fund them in 2007. At the time, he was running TV station operator Allbritton Communications in Arlington, Virginia.