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Shar Dubey aka Sharmistha Dubey is an Indian American business executive. She is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Match Group that owns and operates online dating sites like Tinder, Match, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, Pairs, Our Time, and PlentyofFish.
Wiki/Biography
Shar Dubey was born in 1970 (age 51 years; as of 2021) in Jamshedpur. She was born and brought up in Jamshedpur. After completing her school studies, she went to IIT (Indian Institue of Technology) Kharagpur to earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering. In an interview, she talked about her college days and said,
When I went to IIT back in the late ’80s or early ’90s, I was the only girl in my class for most of the years that I was there, it was hard to be the only girl in a class of 80 to 100 boys. There was no women’s bathroom in the school building where I went to study, so every time I needed to use the restroom, I had to run a mile and a half to the dorm. There was only one dorm for girls, and that was the only place I could go.”
Sundar Pichai was one of her classmates while she was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Engineering. After completing graduation, she took two years to save money to buy a plane ticket and pay the application fees for her postgraduation in America. With many dreams in her eyes, she took a flight to Columbus to seek admission to The Ohio State University. While sharing the problems she faced in her college times she said,
No one would sit next to me in class—even my lab partner would not show up for projects because he was uncomfortable that i was a girl. I thought about quitting just about every day for about a month. I remember another girl who was two years senior to me, “And she said, ‘If you quit, you’re the only one that’s going to lose. So grit it up.”
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 6″
Weight (approx.): 60 kg
Hair Colour: Ash Blonde
Eye Colour: Dark Brown
Family
She belongs to a Hindu Brahmin family.
Parents
Her father was a mechanical engineering professor, and they lived on the campus of an engineering school. In an interview, she talked about the role of her parents in shaping her career by providing her good education. She said,
Both my parents were very ambitious for me, which was unusual. Growing up in India in the ’70s and ’80s, it was the boys who had to get educated, and the girls who had to grow up to become good homemakers. But my parents never thought I should be raised differently than my brother. My dad always said: “The first thing you’ve got to do is learn to stand on your own two feet. It doesn’t matter after that. Everything else is sort of easy.”
She has one brother.
Husband & Children
Her Husband’s name is Partha Ragunathan. She met him at her first job in India, where they both worked as engineers. They reunited at their grad school, fell in love, and got married after completing their graduation. The couple has one daughter.
Career
After completing her graduation, she worked as an engineer before joining grad school in the US. After completing grad school, she started her career at an aerospace company in Philadelphia. She was the first female engineer and the first employee out of the country they had ever hired. In this aerospace company, she faced a lot of problems. She calls it to be her most challenging phase. She added,
I decided to outwork everybody. “If nothing else, I was going to win him over. Even to this day, being the CEO of a $45 billion company, nothing compares to me winning him over.”
After working in an aerospace company, in 1998, she moved to work in Texas Instruments along with her husband, in Texas. She then joined i2 Technologies, a supply chain management software company. While working in this company, she came to know about Mandy Ginsberg and became friends with her. Mandy Ginsberg later joined the Match group and soon became the General Manager of a new brand that was being launched. The Match Group moved its headquarters to Dallas in 2000. In 2006, when Mandy was looking for an employee who could fill the company’s product engineering role, she remembered Dubey’s knowledge and work ethic. While talking about this, Shar said,
Initially I rejected the proposal as i was very comfortable with my previous job. Then one day I called her and said, ‘I’ll do it,’ and that was it,” We shared a very good friendship for many years and our partnership turned out to be very productive.”
In the span of 15 years of her job in Match Group, she held several posts. Her posts include President of Match Group Americas, overseeing all product, engineering, and revenue functions at the portfolio’s domestic brands, Chief Product Officer of Match, and Chief Product Officer and EVP of The Princeton Review. She also served as Chief Operating Officer of Tinder, where she led the team that launched Tinder Gold, a subscription product that has established Tinder as the highest-grossing non-gaming app globally. She was also an EVP of tutor.com from 2013- 2014. In March 2021, she became the CEO of Match Group, where she held 8 portfolio brands. When asked by an interviewer about the problems faced by her as the CEO of the company, she said,
Society constantly thinks that the CEO has to have all the answers and that we have to be able to tell people what to do,”. “I totally disagree with that premise and when it comes to managing, I don’t manage people. I manage the problem. I manage the process. I never manage people. Building trust equity is the most challenging work as the CEO. It was an advantage for me when I became C.E.O., because I had been at the company a long time. But there were a lot more people that I’d never met. And if you don’t meet folks over time, the longer you’re stuck with not meeting in person, that trust equity gets harder and harder.”
When The Boss of Romance Met With the Pandemic
Dubey was appointed as the CEO on March 1, 2021, a few days before the lockdown and three months before IAC got separated from Match Group. Dubey said,
“We saw a pretty sharp decline in almost every metric across all our platforms. It became clear that people couldn’t go out and meet, and that this was going to have to dramatically change.”
Seizing the opportunity amid the pandemic, Shar Dubey added many features to her dating apps including the video feature. Dubey believed that video meetings will give users an opportunity to have a deeper insight into one’s life. This video feature turned out very successful. Within a month, the company recorded a high percentage of women’s engagement that was never seen before. Also, according to the reports, Tinder showed the most love connections and longer conversations. After this success, Dubey said,
Our surveys showed that honesty became more prized than physical looks. The pandemic had driven people to find partners. It’s human need. None of us do well with loneliness and the isolation of the pandemic drove people to say never again am I going to isolate on my own and it brought in revenue also.”
In an article, The Economic Times revealed the company’s profit during the lockdown. For the first quarter, Match’s total revenue jumped by 23% to $668 million versus estimates of $650.7 million, largely powered by an 18% revenue rise at Tinder on average subscriber growth of 15%. Other brands saw a revenue rise of 30%. Match’s average revenue per user rose to 9%. Total subscribers increased by 12%, i.e., to 11.1 million. On a per-share basis, the company earned 57 cents, 17 cents more than expected.
Campaigned Against Texas Abortion Law
On 1 September 2021, Texas lawmakers passed an abortion law that banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Once, the cardiac activity is detected in the mother’s embryo, the mother can’t abort the infant unless it is harmful to the mother’s health. The law does not even make exceptions for rape or incest. Unlike others, Shar Dubey raised her voice against the law and wrote an email to her employees saying,
As a Texas resident, I am shocked that I now live in a state where women’s reproductive laws are more regressive than most of the world, including India.
She raised funds for the employees of Match Group who were affected by the abortion law. According to Shar, it was her individual effort to raise the funds for the employees of Match Group. In an email sent to her employees, Dubey explained that although Match Group never indulged in politics and the policies made by the policymakers, she could not keep herself away to raise her voice against the abortion law passed by the Texas lawmakers.
Citizens Of Texas Protesting Against Abortion Law
Controversies
After Shar Dubey became the CEO of Match Group on 1 March 2020, there were rumours about her conflict with the former CEO Mandy Ginsberg, and it was reported that this conflict was the reason behind Mandy Ginsberg stepping down from the position. Ginsberg, later, revealed in an interview that she stepped down for some personal reasons. In an email, the former CEO Mandy wrote that she had undergone a preventative double mastectomy 15 years ago after testing positive for the BRCA1 gene. This was after two maternal family members died from ovarian cancer.
Awards & Achievements
- Won Tech Leader of the Year at Vogue Women of The Year 2021
- Featured in Forbes Magazine’s list of most powerful women in 2021
Net Worth
The estimated Net Worth of Sharmistha Dubey is at least $8.31 Million dollars as of 13 May 2020. Ms Dubey owns over 14,442 units of Fortive Corp Stock worth over $6,019,824 and over the last 4 years, she sold FTV stock worth over $2,290,925. On average, Shar trades about 25,360 units every 35 days since 2018.
Facts/Trivia
- Shar Dubey is considered a humble leader who prizes values, trust, empathy, and transparency among her coworkers.
- She is known as the “Boss of Romance” in popular media.
- In an interview, she talked about the motive behind her entry into the world of online dating sites. She said,
I met my husband over 25 years ago and I absolutely think my life is better with him than it would be without him.”
- She has disdain for arranged marriages.
- Mahindra Group Chairman, Anand Mahindra, praised Shar Dubey for turning online dating games into a multibillion-dollar empire.
He shared New York Times article and wrote,