The Most Important Person at Gawker Media Not Named Nick Denton Is Leaving

Gaby Darbyshire, Gawker Media’s longtime chief operating officer, is leaving the company.

Or maybe she has already left. Ask different people at Nick Denton’s blog network about Darbyshire’s departure date and you’ll get different results. Some think she left last summer; others say last fall, and others insist that she’s still doing a few last things for Denton.

Details! The gist: Darbyshire, a Brit who kept all of Denton’s trains running and his employees out of (severe) legal trouble for the last decade-plus, is going to do something new.

Here’s her official take on the matter, delivered via email: “I had a great run with Nick at Gawker, but I want to do some other projects. Given that the company has matured into a well-oiled machine, it was the right time for me to move on, and change is a good thing for everyone.”

To get a sense of how important Darbyshire was to Denton, consult this excellent 2010 New York Observer profile, written by John Koblin, who now works for Denton at his Deadspin sports site.

Key paragraph:

Virtually all editors who have worked with the site agree that she’s very good at her very busy job, which is not just limited to being the head counsel. She is a sort of everywoman at Gawker, wearing hats that include overseeing law, finance, business development, the 401(k) deals, HR issues, maternity leave policy (which, as a testament to Gawker growing bigger and bigger, now needs to be drafted) — almost anything that is money-related and doesn’t deal with editorial or advertising.

Beyond her crucial role as Gawker’s chief grownup, Darbyshire was also notable for her long tenure. Gawker Media employees come and go all the time — last month, for instance, Gizmodo editor Joe Brown left for Wired; in January, Ray Wert left, just a half year after Denton put him in charge of “content creation” for advertisers — but Darbyshire has been with Denton forever.

Back in May, Denton shuffled his staff around and announced that he was putting Darbyshire in charge of international expansion efforts. Here’s the relevant part of that memo, for Gawker Media completists: