Canonical CEO Jane Silber has announced she is stepping down from the role later this year.

Mark Shuttleworth will become Canonical CEO in July.

Revealing the news in a blog post, Silber says the company is “entering a new phase of accelerated growth” and that “it’s time to pass the baton to both seasoned hands and a new generation of Canonical leaders.”

“I joined Canonical as COO in 2004, excited by the vision of Ubuntu and the possibilities that could unfold from the software, the collaboration with the open source community, the energy of an international, distributed start-up and the impact it could have on the world,” she says.

She was promoted to Canonical CEO in 2010, with Mark Shuttleworth stepping down to focus on “product design, partnerships and customers”.

For now there’s no immediate change; Silber will remain CEO for another 3 months as she ‘begin[s] to formally transfer knowledge and responsibility to others in the executive team’ from today.

She will take up a place on the Canonical Board of Directors, and says she is looking forward “to many more years with Ubuntu from my new positions in both the Canonical Board and the Ubuntu community.”

As for a full-time role she’s less certain, and plans to “take some time to recharge and then seek new challenges.”

I have only met/spoken to Jane a couple of times. It’s never been for long, and never beyond pleasantries and warm words.But I have spent plenty of time talking to people who work at Canonical and one thing I can say — breaking no confidences here — is that she was held in extremely high esteem.

She signs off on a positive note, describing her pride at what the company and the community accomplished together.