Iosotaluno photo courtesy of Match Group. Art by Clark Miller.
The Big Read

‘I Want My Daughters to Be on Tinder’: A New CEO Hopes to Make Everyone Fall in Love Again

If Faye Iosotaluno can spark substantial growth, she could offer a blueprint for an entire beleaguered industry.

Faye Iosotaluno initially envisioned her family’s December trip to New Zealand as a holiday-time sojourn, but a week before they left, she learned they’d have another reason to celebrate. She’d gotten the top job at Tinder, after a lengthy stretch as its chief operating officer.

For Iosotaluno, the role would mean a plunge deeper into tumultuous water. Tinder, the most important part of its publicly traded corporate parent, Match Group, had gone without a dedicated CEO for nearly two years. It was a period marked by growing concern among investors about revenue and that young users were losing interest in the aging app—as evidenced by a nearly 50% drop in Match Group stock in that time period.

The position is the sort of high-wire act Iosotaluno craves. And, in New Zealand,  she chose to mark the career-defining moment with a 140-foot-plus bungee jump. “I had never done it before,” she told me last week in her first in-depth interview since becoming CEO. “So I did it.” She called the adventure “completely exhilarating and pretty freeing” and particularly relished sharing a moment with her daughters, ages 8 and 10, to “show them that their mom—that women—can do these really amazing things and be fearless.”