Channel 4’s CEO Alex Mahon has announced she will step down from her position and will leave this summer.

Mahon was the broadcaster’s first female CEO, joining in 2017. During her time at Channel 4, she secured the company’s public ownership and turned it into “a digital first” public service streamer.

She also launched the UK’s first menopause and pregnancy loss policies, which have been adopted by companies worldwide.

“Working at Channel 4 has been a lifetime privilege because Channel 4 is the most extraordinary organisation,” she said.

“What we get to do here is much more than television because we reflect our country with humour, creativity, grit, and care. We try our best to challenge convention and to change conversations. And we do it with a kind of irreverent brilliance that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else.”

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Jonathan Allen, Channel 4’s chief operating officer will serve as interim CEO, while the board undertakes recruitment process to find a new CEO.

Dawn Airey, Channel 4 interim chair, said: “Alex is a great figure in British television. She has been one of the most impactful CEOs since Jeremy Isaacs’ founding of Channel 4, more than 42 years ago.”

“She is business-minded and has also been transformational both culturally and creatively, proving time and again her extraordinary ability to inspire and drive positive and meaningful change,” she added.

Mahon’s commitment to Channel 4’s public service mission “has been unwavering”, said Airey.

“She has backed entertaining, shocking, interesting telly, never playing it safe and her grit and resilience more than met the rough-tough challenges of recent times.”