Yahoo Finance Tinder chief leaves dating app after less than a year
The chief executive of Tinder has left the dating app after less than a year after the market value of its parent company plunged by more than a fifth following reporting disappointing results.
The departure of Renate Nyborg was one of a number of management changes announced by the $20bn Match Group, which owns dating brands including Hinge, Tinder and Match.com.
Its share price plunged by more than 20% on Tuesday after missing Wall Street second-quarter expectations and issuing weaker-than-expected guidance.
“Today we are announcing the departure of Tinder chief executive Renate Nyborg, and I have made some changes to the management team and structure that I am confident will help deliver Tinder’s full potential,” said Bernard Kim, the chief executive of Match Group, in a letter to shareholders.
“We have not been able to realise the monetisation successes that we typically deliver. Tinder’s current revenue growth expectations for the second half of the year are below our original expectations as a result of disappointing execution on several optimisations and new product initiatives.”
Kim said he would oversee a new management team for Tinder while the company looked for a permanent replacement for Nyborg, who became the dating app’s first female chief executive in September.
“I’ll be fully embedded within the team at our main Tinder office in Los Angeles to oversee business progress until the search is complete,” he said. “I believe Tinder’s overall product execution and velocity can be improved and that we need to do more to excite our user base.”
Kim said Tinder’s plans to introduce new technologies, such as virtual currencies and metaverse-based dating, were also under review as part of the restructure.
“After seeing mixed results from testing Tinder Coins, we’ve decided to take a step back and re-examine that initiative,” he said. “We also intend to do more thinking about virtual goods.”
Match Group reported second-quarter revenues of $795m, a 12% increase year on year but below analysts’ consensus expectations of about $704m.
The company, which also owns OkCupid and Plenty of Fish, expects revenues in the third quarter to be between $790m and $800m, also below Wall Street expectations.
“While people have generally moved past lockdowns and entered into a more normal way of life, their willingness to try online dating products for the first time hasn’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels,” Kim said.
Kim was appointed as Match chief executive in May after his predecessor, Shar Dubey, stepped down after just over two years.
