© Joe Cummings, Financial Times
Hannah Murphy, Financial Times (Financial Times)
Former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, 44, has been announced as the replacement for Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, marking a rare transition between two female leaders in technology.
Jones has a tough job on his hands. Shares of the female-friendly dating app have fallen about 80% since its 2021 initial public offering. In March, Blackstone, Bumble's largest institutional shareholder, sold a 10% stake in the app at a steep discount of $300 million. The $7 billion dating market is still dominated by incumbent Match Group, which has acquired upstarts such as Hinge.
Brian Solis, global head of innovation at ServiceNow and a former vice president at Salesforce, said Jones succeeds Wolfe Herd after the Bumble founder “struggled with all the things that make things so difficult for women.” ) is “an incredible recognition.” Founder”. By all accounts, the passing of the baton was swift. According to Bumble, Wolfe Herd had been considering a succession plan for some time but had been unable to find the right person. Then she stumbled upon a video of Jones’ interview on CNBC in May, in which the then-Slack chief calmly promoted the launch of “Slack GPT” — the platform’s generative AI chatbot. Wolfe Herd was impressed, and the two soon became acquainted through mutual contact.
Read the full article in the Financial Times.
