DANA POINT, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 27: Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder & CEO, Bumble speaks onstage during Vox Media’s 2023 Code Conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel on September 27, 2023 in Dana Point, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media)
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Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and CEO of the dating app Bumble, is stepping down from her role at the helm of the company early next year.
Bumble requires women to make the first move with dating prospects, and Wolfe Herd founded the company in 2014 as a way to create an empowering and safe online dating space. She will be succeeded by Lidiane Jones, the CEO of Salesforce’s cloud-based messaging platform Slack, on Jan. 2, 2024, according to a company release Monday.
Shares of Bumble were down more than 9% Monday and are down 35% year-to-date.
“It’s a monumental moment, one that has taken a great deal of time, consideration and care, for me to pass the baton to a leader and a woman I deeply respect,” Wolfe Herd said in a release. She will transition to a new role as Executive Chair when Jones takes over as CEO.
Jones secured the top job at Slack earlier this year after holding other executive roles at Salesforce and spending over a decade at Microsoft. She said she has “long admired” Bumble’s mission and is looking forward to driving “long-term, sustainable growth” at the company.
She added that she is “grateful to have the support of my colleagues at Slack and Salesforce.” Representatives for Salesforce did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Bumble will report its third-quarter results on Tuesday.