Lidiane Jones to Replace Whitney Wolfe Herd as Bumble CEO

Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble, has announced to step down as CEO of the dating app that she launched in 2014 with a vision of creating “the female internet.” Bumble is known for giving women the power to initiate the first contact in heterosexual matches.

Wolfe Herd will be replaced by Lidiane Jones, who is currently the CEO of Slack, a workplace communication platform. Jones will take over Bumble on January 2, while Wolfe Herd will become executive chair.

In her announcement, Herd praised Jones, who has a long career in the tech industry – she worked for 13 years at Microsoft, led the software product team at Sonos, and spent several years at Salesforce before joining Slack last year – for her skills in developing new products and her enthusiasm for artificial intelligence.

Jones said that she plans to use AI “to continue to enhance the perfect match, but also [create] experiences that are more natural for members to discover their match.” She also said that AI can help Bumble maintain its focus on user safety. “We look forward to becoming leaders in defining how AI can safely bring matches.”