Tinder co-founder Sean Rad sacked as CEO

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a white background.

Tinder co-founder Sean Rad has announced that he has been ousted as the company’s CEO.

The 28-year-old spearheaded the launch of the hookup app, which has become increasingly popular with gay men in the past year.

Mr Rad stepped down following a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him and co-founder Justin Mateen, by female former VP Whitney Wolfe.

He told Forbes: “The board thought the best path was to bring in a CEO, thinking if we opened up the role it would attract better talent. I strongly disagreed.

“I went through every stage of mourning at once – fear, a bruised ego.I started thinking about the company and my whole future.”

Mr Rad has previously voiced appreciation for the huge numbers of gay people who use the app, saying: “The product works for the gay community, but we need to do a better job of sort of calling it out.”

He also accepted that the app needed to find a way of including transgender and non-binary people outside of its ‘male/female’ approach, agreeing: “I think we could do a better job of making that clear in the UI.”