Editor’s Note: When wowOwow contributor Liz Peek interviewed Susan Lyne two weeks ago, she reported back to the editorial team that she sensed a change was in the air. Was she ever right. Today, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announces that Susan stepped down as CEO, with Wenda Harris Millard and Robin Marino taking over as co-CEOs. Read below and see if you sense the change yourself.

Susan Lyne is the outgoing president and CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, the house that Martha built. Last year the company racked up revenues of $348 million from its popular cookbooks, housewares and media ventures, and it turned a profit for the first time in five years. Before joining MSLO, Lyne had been president of ABC-TV, a unit of Disney. Ironically, she was fired for sagging ratings only months before the wild success of “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost,” two shows that she had “greenlighted.” She stepped into Ms. Stewart’s very large shoes in 2004 when the founder went to jail, and has ably guided the recovering company through Martha’s absence and subsequent return.

In a recent chat with Ms. Lyne, she talked about her job, her children and of course about cooking. (After all, she does work for Martha.) She has had a lot on her plate, including the terrible loss two years ago of her husband George Crile, author of bestseller Charlie Wilson’s War.

Susan Lyne started out in the sixties writing for underground newspapers, repeatedly dropping in and, finally, out of Berkeley, and then rising in rapid succession from one media job to another. She plays tennis, never goes to the gym, has her daughters and stepdaughters over every Sunday night for dinner, shops the Valentino sample sales and admits to never having made a slipcover. In other words, she is a refreshingly normal person.

Ms. Lyne will likely move on in the next couple of years. The terms of Martha’s sentence preclude her from assuming her former role as CEO or being an officer or director of the company for another three years. That said, Ms. Stewart is still intimately involved with the company. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Martha will jump back into that role when allowed to do so. Having two alpha women on deck may be one too many.