A surprising move from Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio is stepping down from that role for William Lynch, who joined in early 2009 as president of BN.com (NYSE: BKS). Riggio stays as vice chairman and insists he will still be actively involved. At the same time, B&N promoted COO Mitchell Klipper to CEO of the company’s retail group, which houses the retail stores and the Barnes & Noble College Booksellers.

Lynch’s promotion over Kipper, a 23-year vet, highlights the shift in B&N’s business from retail bookstores to a multplatform company increasingly focused on digital through its own Nook e-reader, its e-bookstore, which also serves other devices, and its eReader platform. Lynch is credited with propelling B&N into the digital age, or as Riggio said in the announcement, “quickly establishing Barnes & Noble as a major player in e-commerce and digital content.”

Lynch has only been with B&N for little more than a year. He came to B&N from HSNi, where he was EVP of Marketing and General Manager of HSN.com. From 2004 to 2008, he was Chief Executive CEO of gifts.com, an IAC (NSDQ: IACI) subsidiary he co-founded. Before that, he spent four years as VP/GM for E-Commerce at Palm Inc. (NSDQ: PALM), where he oversaw the company’s web properties, including Palm.com, the Palm Online Store, the Palm Software Connection and the Palm.Net wireless ISP.

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