Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and executive chair of Bumble, is set to reassume her role as CEO in mid-March 2025, following the resignation of current CEO Lidiane Jones due to personal reasons.
Jones, who took over the CEO position in January 2024, had previously served as CEO of Slack Technologies and held executive roles at Salesforce, Sonos, and Microsoft.
Wolfe Herd’s return as CEO may be a strategic move to navigate Bumble through the evolving dating app landscape, and to address the greater issues currently impacting the industry.
Bumble, renowned for its female-first messaging approach, has faced recent challenges, including a significant decline in share value and a decrease in average revenue per user.
The dating app industry as a whole may be experiencing a downturn, with competitors like Match Group also reporting a decline in users. A 2023 Pew Research survey indicated that over half of the respondents had encountered scammers on dating platforms, and 51% of women reported negative experiences in general, Additionally, an Ofcom report highlighted a decrease in usage among the top three dating services, particularly among Gen Z users.
Many other platforms have seen similar struggles in recent months, and Herd’s return may lead to major changes in how Bumble operates – or at least a new set of strategies that enable the platform to bounce back hard.
