Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg Steps Down Before Spinoff
Dubey is expected to take over as CEO on March 1 and will oversee Match’s transition to a standalone company.
(Bloomberg) -- Match Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mandy Ginsberg is stepping down after 14 years at the online dating company and just months before it’s set to be spun off.
In an email to staff, Ginsberg, 50, said the past four months have been “personally trying.” A tornado forced her out of her home in October, and she recently underwent surgery. “It’s been a lot to handle,” Ginsberg wrote in the email. “While I expect to have a clean bill of health, short term I need to take care of myself.”
The leadership change announced Tuesday comes just months ahead of Match Group’s planned spinoff from the media and internet conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp. Ginsberg’s deputy, Shar Dubey, 49, will take over as the new CEO, the company said in a statement. Dubey currently serves as the president of Match Group. She was formerly chief operating officer of Tinder, the company’s top-performing unit.
Dubey is expected to take over as CEO on March 1 and will oversee Match’s transition to a standalone company.
Among IAC’s portfolio of 150 brands and products, Match has been a star performer under Ginsberg. In December, IAC announced Match would be separated into a fully independent public company. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2020.
When Ginsberg first joined Match in 2006, the company had only 200 employees and one brand. Since then, it has grown into the biggest online dating provider in the world with more than 45 different dating apps, including Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish and OkCupid.
Ginsberg was promoted to CEO in 2017 and the stock has more than quadrupled since then, closing Tuesday at $83.96. The company now has almost 2,000 employees and has been expanding across Asia Pacific.
“When I started in 2006, we were just launching the second brand at Match and only 3% of relationships were from dating apps (that number is a whopping 50% today in North America and Western Europe and growing every day across the globe!),” Ginsberg wrote in the email to employees.
She said after a challenging four months she made the “emotional decision” to resign. Her family was forced from their Dallas home in October after a tornado “barreled through the city” and she’s suffered some recent “health hiccups.” In her email, Ginsberg said she had a double mastectomy 10 years ago after her mother and aunt died of ovarian cancer and a genetic test showed she had a higher risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer. Last Friday, she had to undergo another surgery due to a recall of her breast implants because they’d been linked to cancer.
“So, with lots of emotion, I ultimately made the decision that this is the best timing for me personally, and for the business,” Ginsberg said. “I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished, and in a few months, I expect Match Group will start its next chapter as a fully independent public company.”
Match Group also named Gary Swidler as chief operating officer, in addition to his role as chief financial officer. Faye Iosotaluno has been named Match’s chief strategy officer and Justine Sacco as the new chief communications officer.
The management changes were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.
To contact the reporter on this story: Olivia Carville in New York at ocarville1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Molly Schuetz at mschuetz9@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Jillian Ward
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