Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is a Greek-American author, columnist and media entrepreneur best known for co-founding the news and commentary website The Huffington Post and for later building the wellness company Thrive Global. A prolific writer and public speaker, she has been an influential figure in digital media and in conversations about work, technology and well-being.

Early life

Huffington was born Arianna Stassinopoulou on July 15, 1950, in Athens, Greece. She moved to the United Kingdom as a young woman and studied economics at the University of Cambridge, where she became president of the Cambridge Union debating society. She established herself first as an author in Britain before relocating to the United States.

Career

Huffington became known as a writer and commentator, publishing biographies and books on politics, culture and society. She was active in American political and media circles for years, including an independent run for governor of California in the 2003 recall election. In 2005 she co-founded The Huffington Post, a website combining aggregated news with original reporting and a large network of bloggers. The site grew rapidly into one of the most-read news destinations online and was acquired by AOL in 2011, after which she continued to lead its expansion internationally.

Recent work

In 2016 Huffington stepped away from The Huffington Post to found Thrive Global, a company focused on health, productivity and combating burnout, an interest she traced to her own experience with exhaustion and overwork. Through Thrive Global and her writing she has championed the importance of sleep, well-being and a healthier relationship with technology, themes she explored in books such as Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. She remains a frequent speaker and commentator on the future of work, media and wellness, and continues to lead Thrive Global as its chief executive. Before her media career, Huffington wrote biographies of figures including the opera singer Maria Callas and the artist Pablo Picasso, and she was a prominent commentator whose political views shifted over the years. Under her leadership The Huffington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, a milestone for a digital-native news organization. She has served on corporate boards, including that of the ride-hailing company Uber, and her many books and public talks have helped popularize discussions of burnout, sleep and workplace well-being. Through Thrive Global she continues to advise companies on employee health and to advocate for changing how people relate to work and technology.