Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returns as CEO amid a dating app decline

Bumble founder and executive chair Whitney Wolfe Herd, who stepped down as CEO at the beginning of 2024, is returning to the post in mid-March. Former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, who succeeded Herd, has resigned for “personal reasons” and will remain in the role until Wolfe Herd takes over.

“As I step into the role of CEO, I’m energized and fully committed to Bumble’s success, our mission of creating meaningful, equitable relationships, and our opportunity ahead,” Wolfe Herd says in a statement. “We have exciting innovation ahead for Bumble in this bold new chapter.”

Bumble gained popularity in part because it was set up for women to message their matches first. But in April, it introduced a redesign and a feature that let men send the first message in response to prewritten questions.

That redesign was announced following layoffs that the company said would “better align its operating model with future strategic priorities,” however, as Fortune notes, its share price has dropped by more than half since the redesign.

Dating apps have struggled as of late, following the “Bumble fumble” anti-celibacy ad it apologized for last year, as competitor Match Group (the owner of Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and other services) reported a drop in users. In Bumble’s most recent earnings report, it said that the number of paying users had increased from 3.8 million to 4.3 million over the last year, however, average revenue per paying user dropped from $23.42 to $21.17, and its total revenue dropped slightly.

A 2023 Pew Research survey found that 52 percent of respondents thought they had come across a scammer on dating sites and apps, and 51 percent of women said their experiences had been negative. In the UK, an Ofcom report last year noted that usage of each of the top three largest dating services had declined from 2023, and survey data increasingly suggests Gen Z daters aren’t using the apps as much.