Nate Lubin -- who directs the White House Office of Digital Strategy and has helped spearhead the administration's use of social media to deliver its message --will step down from his post Friday, according to White House officials.
Lubin, 28, started as a volunteer for Obama's first presidential campaign in New Hampshire while he was an undergraduate at Harvard University and later joined the campaign staff full time. He came to work at the White House in 2013 after serving as digital director for the Presidential Inaugural Commission. Prior to that he served as the director of digital marketing on Obama's reelection campaign, where he oversaw the advertising operation's $112 million budget.
“Since before the president entered the White House, Nate Lubin has worked to help deliver President Obama’s message to people around the country and around the world by capitalizing on the opportunities presented in an evolving digital media landscape," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. "Nate’s creativity and hard-work have pushed all of us to challenge our assumptions and take the kinds of risks that have contributed to our success.”
[READ: The White House's digital leap]
Lubin helped orchestrate the State of the Union's digital rollout in January, which included the online "river of content" and the decision to break news about several of the administration's policy channels on digital channels rather than through traditional media outlets.
Kori Schulman, the White House's director of online engagement, said in an interview that several aspects of the rollout, including the president's Facebook video announcement of his community college plan, were far more popular than staffers had originally anticipated. That video has received more than 8.3 million views so far.
There were more than 1.2 million views of the enhanced State of the Union live stream, according to the White House, and that day the White House gained 10 times as many Twitter followers as on a typical day.
Lubin has also championed the use of videotaping informal "conversations" between the president and influential people as a way of explaining the administration's policies. In March Obama interviewed The Wire's creator David Simon in a video presentation the White House used in conjunction with a criminal justice reform conference.
Lubin's immediate plans, according to White House officials, are to take a vacation for the first time since before the 2012 campaign.
