Whitney Wolfe Herd Is Youngest Self-Made CEO Billionaire To Take Her Company Public
Post the trading debut of Bumble, the value for shares soared upwards 67 percent, amounting to $72.
When you look at the IT world today, it¡¯s dominated by male stalwarts -- whether it's Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk or even Satya Nadella. However, amidst these men, now one 31-year-old woman has defied all odds, becoming a billionaire with her company hitting the New York Stock Exchange.
Getty Images
The company she started was the dating app Bumble and the founder who made all this happen was Whitney Wolfe Herd, CEO of Bumble.
Post the trading debut of Bumble, the value for shares soared upwards 67 percent, amounting to $72. This brought her stake in the company to $1.5 billion, making her the world¡¯s youngest self-made female billionaire. This also made her the youngest female CEO to take a company public in the US.
Born and raised in Salt Lake City, daughter of property developer Michael Wolfe, she completed her early education at Judge Memorial Catholic High School, followed by Southern Methodist University where she majored in international studies.
She worked as an executive and helped in the creation of Tinder before creating the rival dating app keeping that has brought her to this stage -- Bumble -- in the year 2014. The app was designed in a way that put control in the hands of women to make the first move.
Her successful IPO has made her part of a really small group of female billionaire founders. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, self-made women billionaires amount for less than 5 percent of the world¡¯s 500 biggest fortunes. In fact, she rang the bell for her IPO, while holding her one-year-old son.
What's more surprising is that according to one Bloomberg article, only two companies (excluding Bumble) out of a total 500 had gone public in the US last year, which were founded by women.
Reuters
Bumble takes immense pride in having women in the decision making seat. As per the company¡¯s SEC filings, 73 percent of its board and 54 percent of its management team consists of women.
Wolfe Herd said in a statement to Bloomberg, encouraging women entrepreneurs out there that this could be the norm going forward, "Hopefully this will not be a rare headline. Hopefully, this will be the norm. It's the right thing to do, it's a priority for us and it should be a priority for everyone else."
