BuzzFeed general counsel Allison Lucas is leaving the digital media company after five years, Legal Week sister title Corporate Counsel has learned.

A spokesperson confirmed Lucas's departure in an email, noting she "simply was ready for a new challenge after five years at BuzzFeed (a long time in BuzzFeed years!)".

"She's currently exploring new options, but hasn't announced a new role just yet," the spokesperson added.

BuzzFeed has not yet named Lucas' replacement, though the company is "actively searching for one and hopes to have news to share soon", the spokesperson said. Lucas could not immediately be reached for comment about her departure and next steps.

Her tenure has been a time of tremendous growth both within BuzzFeed's legal department, and the company more generally.

Lucas (pictured) was the first-ever GC at the New York-based company, which had just over 250 employees when she joined in 2013.

By the end of last year, Lucas oversaw a legal department of nine lawyers and five copyright managers, according to a November 2017 Bloomberg profile. At that point, the company had grown to about 1,600 employees, the report said.

Before joining BuzzFeed, Lucas already had a rich background in media and intellectual property (IP), previously working for United Media and Gilt Groupe And prior to going in-house, she was a Greenberg Traurig associate practising in IP for nearly four years.

She began her legal career as a securities and M&A associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, representing investment banks and corporations in securities offerings, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In a July 2016 Q&A with Corporate Counsel, Lucas described why she took on the GC role at BuzzFeed: "General counsel jobs that sound interesting don't come along all the time, and general counsel jobs at media companies are even fewer and farther between. BuzzFeed was a company that was pretty interesting at the time and has grown even more interesting."