Whitney Wolfe

Whitney Wolfe Herd (born July 1, 1989) is an American entrepreneur. She is founder and CEO of Bumble, a social and dating app, and a co-founder of the dating app Tinder.

Bumble Launched in 2014. In 2016 and 2017 respectively, Bumble launched BumbleBFF, an app for finding friends, and BumbleBizz, a professional networking app. According to Forbes, the company is valued at more than $1 billion.

Wolfe Herd was named one of Business Insider's 30 Most Important Women Under 30 In Tech in 2014. In 2016, she was named as one of Elle's Women in Tech. Wolfe Herd was named as one of 2017's and 2018's Forbes 30 Under 30. Wolfe Herd was also named one of Inc's 15 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch Out For in 2017. She was featured on the covers of Forbes, Fast Company, and Wired UK. In April 2018, she was named in the TIME 100 List.

Early life and education

Wolfe Herd was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Michael and Kelly Wolfe. Wolfe Herd attended Judge Memorial Catholic High School. When she was in 4th grade, the family went on a sabbatical in Paris, France, where she became fluent in French.

Wolfe Herd attended Southern Methodist University, where she majored in International Studies and was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Her junior year she studied abroad at Sorbonne University in Paris. While in college and at the age of 20, she started a business selling bamboo tote bags to benefit areas affected by the BP oil spill. Wolfe Herd partnered with celebrity stylist Patrick Aufdenkamp to launch the non-profit organization called the "Help Us Project." The bags received national press after celebrities such as Rachel Zoe and Nicole Richie were photographed with them. Soon after, she introduced a second business with Aufdenkamp called "Tender Heart," a clothing line dedicated to raising awareness around human trafficking and fair trade. After graduating, Wolfe Herd traveled to Southeast Asia where she worked with orphanages.

Career

Tinder

At age 22, Wolfe Herd joined Hatch Labs. Through Hatch, she became involved with the startup Cardify, a project led by Sean Rad through Hatch Labs IAC incubator. The project was later abandoned, but Wolfe Herd joined the development team for the dating app Tinder with Rad and Chris Gulczynski within the IAC startup incubator in 2012.

Wolfe Herd became vice president of marketing for Tinder. She was reportedly behind the name of the app, taking inspiration from the flame logo and the idea of tinder, (small sticks) used to ignite a fire. She has also been credited with fueling its popularity on college campuses and growing its user base. Wolfe Herd left the company in 2014 due to growing tensions with other company executives. After leaving the company, Wolfe Herd filed a lawsuit against Tinder for sexual harassment. She reportedly received more than $1 million plus stock as part of a settlement.

Bumble

In December 2014, Wolfe Herd moved to Austin, Texas and founded Bumble, a female-focused dating app. By December 2015, the app had reached over 15 million conversations and 80 million matches. After Wolfe Herd left Tinder, Andrey Andreev, founder of Badoo, contacted her about creating a dating platform and partnered with her, and the company remains majority owned by Badoo.

As of November 2017, Bumble had over 22 million registered users. In January 2018, CNBC reported that Badoo was seeking a sale that could value the company at about $1.5 billion.

Wolfe Herd was named one of Business Insider's 30 Most Important Women Under 30 In Tech in 2014. In 2016, she was named as one of Elle's Women in Tech. She was named to Forbes 30 under 30 in 2017 and 2018.

In December 2017, she was listed in a TechCrunch feature on 42 women succeeding in tech that year.

As of September 2019, Tinder and Bumble were the first and second most popular dating apps in the U.S., with monthly user bases of 7.9 million and 5 million, respectively.

In March 2019, Wolfe Herd testified before the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence committee about the prevalence of unsolicited explicit photos sent to female users on dating applications.

In April 2019, Wolfe released the first print issue of Bumble Mag in partnership with Hearst.

In November 2019, Bumble's parent company MagicLab was sold to the private equity firm The Blackstone Group, with co-founder Andreev relinquishing his entire stake in both Bumble and its sister company, Badoo. Wolfe Herd became CEO of the newly acquired MagicLab, valued at $3 billion with an estimated 75 million users, and received an ownership stake of approximately 19% of the company.

Several months before the sale, in July 2019, Badoo was the subject of a Forbes investigative report outlining workplace misogyny, drug use, and sexual and racial discrimination. Badoo employees, including women, reported a culture of workplace afterparties involving use of recreational drugs and prostitutes, along with several instances of sexual assault and harassment. Wolf Herde, who previously sued Tinder for sexual harassment, denied any wrongdoing from Andreev, telling Forbes, "Andrey [Andreev] has never been anything but kind and respectful to me."

Chappy

UK-based gay dating app Chappy was co-founded by Jack Rogers, Max Cheremkin and Ollie Locke and funded primarily by Bumble and Wolfe Herd.

Wolfe Herd, impressed by the Chappy team's unique approach, led a seed round investment in Chappy. In 2016, TechCrunch wrote: “The company is not disclosing the details of the investment, but they did say that Bumble is the sole investor in the round and will take an equity stake. In exchange, Bumble will be offering product development and marketing support.”

Similarly to Bumble, Chappy is majority owned by Andrey Andreev and is being developed under umbrella of Badoo Group.

Personal life

She is married to Michael Herd. On June 17th, the couple announced their first pregnancy on Instagram, a son due in November 2019. Due to this, Wolfe Herd has announced new parental benefits for Bumble employees, including bonuses, paid leave, and flexible start times.

In 2019, Forbes listed Herd at number 72 of the top 80 "richest self-made women."