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都说女高管很孤独,但她俩从未有这种感觉

都说女高管很孤独,但她俩从未有这种感觉

Emma Hinchliffe 2023-01-25
曼迪·金斯伯格和沙尔·杜贝在高管办公室内外都是最好的朋友。

图片来源:PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FORTUNE; GINSBERG: COURTESY OF ADVENT; DUBEY: COURTESY OF FORTIVE

2020年2月,曼迪·金斯伯格从社交平台Match Group首席执行官的位置上退了下来。龙卷风摧毁了她在达拉斯的家,很快,她的医生又说她需要动手术移除胸部填充物,原因是此前的预防性双侧乳腺切除术使用的填充物有致癌风险,已经被召回。

这段经历几乎击垮了金斯伯格,她从未想到自己在这家大型在线约会平台工作14年后会以这样的方式收场。但自始至终都陪伴着她,并准备好接替她的正是沙尔·杜贝。

Match Group的总部设在美国达拉斯,金斯伯格卸任时的营收规模为30亿美元。长期以来,杜贝一直担任该公司的产品负责人,随后接掌了首席执行官职位。这绝不是普通的人员交替,原因是20年来两个人一直是最好的朋友,而且在多家公司和多个职位上都是不可分割的搭档。她们曾经试图说服Match Group的董事会设置联席首席执行官,但未能成功。金斯伯格说:“跟我没有血缘关系但对我的人生影响最大的人有两个,一个是我的丈夫,另一个是沙尔。”

杜贝作为首席执行官工作了两年半,在此期间她应对着自己的挑战,包括新冠疫情和得克萨斯州的堕胎禁令,随后在2022年5月卸任。此时这对伙伴已经准备好在职场上再次联手。2022年10月,她们双双作为运营合伙人加入了私募股权公司Advent International。

进入最高管理层的女性往往形单影只,因此极少有人能够拥有金斯伯格和杜贝那样的友谊。她们的新职务不仅仅是同事、朋友或者“职场主妇”的重聚,也标志着两人几十年来的亲密关系进入了另一阶段。

在Match Group,杜贝和金斯伯格产生了巨大的文化影响力——她们的产品改变了人们见面、约会和结婚的方式。现在,随着两人再次结伴工作,她们正在想办法把过去20年的经验分享给一批新的增长型企业。

登上巅峰

2001年,在互联网泡沫逐渐消散之际,金斯伯格和杜贝在达拉斯软件公司i2 Technologies相识。金斯伯格作为营销副总裁进入该公司时,杜贝刚刚升任产品总监。

她们年龄相仿——当时金斯伯格31岁,杜贝30岁。但两人背景不同。金斯伯格在美国的达拉斯长大,那时她刚刚离婚,带着一个孩子,她为人开朗,充满活力。杜贝来自印度的贾姆谢德布尔市,是一位内向的工程师,她的丈夫是她的研究生同学,两人在美国再次相遇后结了婚。

金斯伯格善于和人们建立联系并迅速交上朋友,这给了杜贝很深的印象。同时,和金斯伯格交谈时,杜贝为她分析了她们的工作以及金斯伯格的约会情况。她们差不多立刻就成了朋友。

2006年,金斯伯格离开i2 Technologies,进入Match Group。后者当时隶属于数字媒体集团IAC,规模较小但处于行业领先位置。那个时候在线约会刚刚起步,只有3%的新婚夫妇是在网上结识的,而今天这个数字几乎达到50%。那时Match Group推出了第二个品牌Chemistry,并且希望由金斯伯格负责运营。上任两周后,她问杜贝是否认识可以在产品方面帮上忙的人。杜贝一反常态地冒了个险——她推荐了自己,并且得到了这份工作。杜贝回忆道:“那时候我对消费互联网一无所知,对在线约会也一窍不通。”

建立了25人的小团队后,两位负责人掌握了早期数字营销和搜索引擎优化的基本知识。她们推出了一条引起争议的电视广告,内容是指责竞争对手eHarmony拒绝同性恋会员。随后她们把自己模式用到了Match.com和另一家兄弟公司Tutor.com上,Tutor.com就是现在的Princeton Review。

2016年,Match Group的首席执行官格雷格·布拉特将两人都招至总公司。金斯伯格成为Match Group的北美业务首席执行官,杜贝成为她身边的北美业务总裁(杜贝还在Match Group的品牌Tinder短暂担任过首席运营官,并将该平台打造成了赚钱机器)。2018年,两人的头衔中都去掉了“北美”二字。金斯伯格成为Match Group的首席执行官,杜贝则升任总裁,继续陪在她身边。

除了互为工作伙伴,金斯伯格和杜贝在工作以外的关系也日益紧密。她们一起做晚饭,一起在达拉斯的住所附近散步。有时候,布拉特会打电话给金斯伯格,问她是否知道杜贝在哪儿,结果却发现两人在一起度假。她们经常和i2 Technologies的老同事一起去欧洲旅行。金斯伯格为杜贝的女儿玛雅填写了小学入学申请表,理由是作为美国一所女校的校友,她更清楚怎么完成这项工作。2008年金斯伯格和第二任丈夫迎来了第二个孩子后,她问杜贝是否介意也把这个女儿叫做玛雅。

图片来源:COURTESY OF SHAR DUBEY AND MANDY GINSBERG

由于BRCA1基因(乳腺癌1号基因)阳性,也就是患乳腺癌和卵巢癌的风险较高,金斯伯格接受了预防性两侧乳腺切除术、子宫切除术和卵巢切除术。2020年她在第二次乳腺手术后醒来时,坐在病床边的两个人是她的丈夫和杜贝。

金斯伯格回忆说:“这样的关系万里无一。有时候人们的能力互不重叠。有时候公司需要不同的东西。我们研究了很多年才发现我们确实与众不同。”

两位首席执行官的故事

两人在公司共同升职时,金斯伯格经常领先一步。据同事们介绍,出现这种情况的原因是两人的性格截然不同,而不是能力方面的差距。

杜贝喜欢埋头工作。出差时,她更愿意待在房间里叫客房服务,金斯伯格却总是拽着她出去“快活”。在飞机上,杜贝会安静地用笔记本电脑工作,金斯伯格则会和邻座聊得火热。

两人都认为对方拥有自己欠缺的能力。杜贝经常向金斯伯格传授基础知识并帮助她实现愿景,而金斯伯格是杜贝的个人激励师,把她从自己的壳里拉出来。一同工作让她们应对业务挑战的宽度倍增。Glassdoor的首席产品官安迪·陈曾经在Match Group为两人工作,他把她们两个描述为“心脏和大脑”。

陈说:“她俩的关系就是另一位你能够信任的最高管理者对你也很诚实,这让我羡慕不已。她们可以相互促进,而且确实恰好互补。”

Match Group任命金斯伯格为首席执行官后,她想说服公司董事会把杜贝任命为联席首席执行官。金斯伯格表示:“董事们看我的样子就像看有十个脑袋的怪物。但就我们俩来说,这样安排再合适不过了。”

两人都说如果没有对方,自己就绝对不会走到这么高的位置。在创业方面,研究早已表明和同样的女性企业主打交道能够帮助女性在创业时取得成功。但在美国公司中,这样的关系少之又少。2018年,LeanIn.org的职场女性年度报告聚焦于“唯一”现象,也就是说,进入企业最高层的女性总是缺少女性同事。这项研究发现,40%的女性高管表示她们是管理团队中的唯一女性成员,而且“唯一”的女性管理者考虑辞职的可能性比非唯一女性管理者高50%。

历史上将男性或女性送入高管办公室的品质,比如果断和高效,未必有助于培养职场友谊。倡导性别多样化的商业团体“30%俱乐部”(30% Club)的主席安·凯恩斯指出,“登上最高领导岗位的人”往往不重视工作中的亲密友谊。

杜贝和金斯伯格是例外。杜贝说:“人们抱怨说身居高位让人孤独,但我从来都没有这样的感觉。”

担任首席执行官期间,金斯伯格带领Match Group与Bumble和Facebook等新兴在线约会平台抗衡。她为Match Group从IAC剥离出来做了准备。她看到了Tinder的迅猛增长,并成为公司的首要创收品牌。她还主导了针对Bumble的知识产权官司。

杜贝担任首席执行官时更受关注。

她于2020年3月接替金斯伯格,当时新冠疫情刚刚开始。她领导公司转向远程工作并适应在线约会常态的变化,并且带领公司从2020年6月起彻底脱离IAC。她还直言不讳地批评苹果公司(Apple),指责其实施应用内支付规则时前后不一。

尽管金斯伯格已经不再是Match Group的高层成员,但杜贝仍然会向她寻求建议。杜贝称:“身居高位时你往往无法跟别人随意聊天。而对我来说,曼迪一直是那个我可以随时聊天的人。”

2021年9月,得克萨斯州通过SB8法令,禁止女性在怀孕六周后堕胎,从而成为美国率先推翻“罗诉韦德案”(Roe v. Wade)的州。杜贝开始考虑作为得州公司的女性首席执行官该怎样做出回应。她给金斯伯格打了电话,在后者的帮助下,她决定自己设立一只基金来资助需要跨州接受生殖医疗服务的员工,而不是由Match Group出资。她还在金斯伯格指导下向员工发文,其中写道:“公司通常不会表明政治立场,除非这和我们的业务有关。但对于此事,作为得州女性,我个人无法保持沉默。”

这项决定让通常寡言少语的杜贝成为第一位就反堕胎法表明立场的上市公司首席执行官。

不过,杜贝知道自己不想在首席执行官的位置上待太久。她说:“我从来没有奢望过做一家上市公司的首席执行官。”她告诉董事会将任职一年,但最终在这个位置上坐了大概两年半,直到游戏公司Zynga的总裁伯纳德·金成为她的继任者。

由于频繁重组,很难衡量Match Group在杜贝和金斯伯格任期内的增长率和业绩。她们在Match品牌下的第一个团队约有200人,而今天该公司员工数量已经超过2,500人。2017年年底,就在金斯伯格上任前夕,Match Group的营收规模为17亿美元,而杜贝卸任时其营收为30亿美元。从2018年金斯伯格升任首席执行官到2022年杜贝离任,Match Group的股价上涨了143%,但2020年Match Group彻底从IAC剥离,因此这一涨幅包含两个不同的实体。

再次相聚

杜贝离开Match Group后,她和金斯伯格开始考虑接下来做什么。外部因素阻断了金斯伯格的职业生涯。担任首席执行官则让杜贝筋疲力尽。最近两人都步入中年,而且都在考虑自己想怎样生活。杜贝说,她们在工作中相互思念,并且最看重有可能让她们再次共同工作的机会。

她们最终选择了私募股权公司Advent International,将担任运营合伙人,并以消费科技领域为主。该公司的投资对象包括Lululemon、数字银行Nubank,以及护发品牌Olaplex。

如果能够实现,两人可能就会按照她们的条件一起离开Match Group。相反,在好朋友以及好朋友的董事会需要她时,杜贝走出了自己的舒适区来担任首席执行官。杜贝说:“我们一起成长,一起在职场上迈进。”她们希望教给下一代经营者的是不光要扩大企业规模,还要像她们那样找到伙伴,前提是要有好运气。杜贝补充道:“良好的关系可以改变你的人生。”(财富中文网)

译者:Charlie

2020年2月,曼迪·金斯伯格从社交平台Match Group首席执行官的位置上退了下来。龙卷风摧毁了她在达拉斯的家,很快,她的医生又说她需要动手术移除胸部填充物,原因是此前的预防性双侧乳腺切除术使用的填充物有致癌风险,已经被召回。

这段经历几乎击垮了金斯伯格,她从未想到自己在这家大型在线约会平台工作14年后会以这样的方式收场。但自始至终都陪伴着她,并准备好接替她的正是沙尔·杜贝。

Match Group的总部设在美国达拉斯,金斯伯格卸任时的营收规模为30亿美元。长期以来,杜贝一直担任该公司的产品负责人,随后接掌了首席执行官职位。这绝不是普通的人员交替,原因是20年来两个人一直是最好的朋友,而且在多家公司和多个职位上都是不可分割的搭档。她们曾经试图说服Match Group的董事会设置联席首席执行官,但未能成功。金斯伯格说:“跟我没有血缘关系但对我的人生影响最大的人有两个,一个是我的丈夫,另一个是沙尔。”

杜贝作为首席执行官工作了两年半,在此期间她应对着自己的挑战,包括新冠疫情和得克萨斯州的堕胎禁令,随后在2022年5月卸任。此时这对伙伴已经准备好在职场上再次联手。2022年10月,她们双双作为运营合伙人加入了私募股权公司Advent International。

进入最高管理层的女性往往形单影只,因此极少有人能够拥有金斯伯格和杜贝那样的友谊。她们的新职务不仅仅是同事、朋友或者“职场主妇”的重聚,也标志着两人几十年来的亲密关系进入了另一阶段。

在Match Group,杜贝和金斯伯格产生了巨大的文化影响力——她们的产品改变了人们见面、约会和结婚的方式。现在,随着两人再次结伴工作,她们正在想办法把过去20年的经验分享给一批新的增长型企业。

登上巅峰

2001年,在互联网泡沫逐渐消散之际,金斯伯格和杜贝在达拉斯软件公司i2 Technologies相识。金斯伯格作为营销副总裁进入该公司时,杜贝刚刚升任产品总监。

她们年龄相仿——当时金斯伯格31岁,杜贝30岁。但两人背景不同。金斯伯格在美国的达拉斯长大,那时她刚刚离婚,带着一个孩子,她为人开朗,充满活力。杜贝来自印度的贾姆谢德布尔市,是一位内向的工程师,她的丈夫是她的研究生同学,两人在美国再次相遇后结了婚。

金斯伯格善于和人们建立联系并迅速交上朋友,这给了杜贝很深的印象。同时,和金斯伯格交谈时,杜贝为她分析了她们的工作以及金斯伯格的约会情况。她们差不多立刻就成了朋友。

2006年,金斯伯格离开i2 Technologies,进入Match Group。后者当时隶属于数字媒体集团IAC,规模较小但处于行业领先位置。那个时候在线约会刚刚起步,只有3%的新婚夫妇是在网上结识的,而今天这个数字几乎达到50%。那时Match Group推出了第二个品牌Chemistry,并且希望由金斯伯格负责运营。上任两周后,她问杜贝是否认识可以在产品方面帮上忙的人。杜贝一反常态地冒了个险——她推荐了自己,并且得到了这份工作。杜贝回忆道:“那时候我对消费互联网一无所知,对在线约会也一窍不通。”

建立了25人的小团队后,两位负责人掌握了早期数字营销和搜索引擎优化的基本知识。她们推出了一条引起争议的电视广告,内容是指责竞争对手eHarmony拒绝同性恋会员。随后她们把自己模式用到了Match.com和另一家兄弟公司Tutor.com上,Tutor.com就是现在的Princeton Review。

2016年,Match Group的首席执行官格雷格·布拉特将两人都招至总公司。金斯伯格成为Match Group的北美业务首席执行官,杜贝成为她身边的北美业务总裁(杜贝还在Match Group的品牌Tinder短暂担任过首席运营官,并将该平台打造成了赚钱机器)。2018年,两人的头衔中都去掉了“北美”二字。金斯伯格成为Match Group的首席执行官,杜贝则升任总裁,继续陪在她身边。

除了互为工作伙伴,金斯伯格和杜贝在工作以外的关系也日益紧密。她们一起做晚饭,一起在达拉斯的住所附近散步。有时候,布拉特会打电话给金斯伯格,问她是否知道杜贝在哪儿,结果却发现两人在一起度假。她们经常和i2 Technologies的老同事一起去欧洲旅行。金斯伯格为杜贝的女儿玛雅填写了小学入学申请表,理由是作为美国一所女校的校友,她更清楚怎么完成这项工作。2008年金斯伯格和第二任丈夫迎来了第二个孩子后,她问杜贝是否介意也把这个女儿叫做玛雅。

由于BRCA1基因(乳腺癌1号基因)阳性,也就是患乳腺癌和卵巢癌的风险较高,金斯伯格接受了预防性两侧乳腺切除术、子宫切除术和卵巢切除术。2020年她在第二次乳腺手术后醒来时,坐在病床边的两个人是她的丈夫和杜贝。

金斯伯格回忆说:“这样的关系万里无一。有时候人们的能力互不重叠。有时候公司需要不同的东西。我们研究了很多年才发现我们确实与众不同。”

两位首席执行官的故事

两人在公司共同升职时,金斯伯格经常领先一步。据同事们介绍,出现这种情况的原因是两人的性格截然不同,而不是能力方面的差距。

杜贝喜欢埋头工作。出差时,她更愿意待在房间里叫客房服务,金斯伯格却总是拽着她出去“快活”。在飞机上,杜贝会安静地用笔记本电脑工作,金斯伯格则会和邻座聊得火热。

两人都认为对方拥有自己欠缺的能力。杜贝经常向金斯伯格传授基础知识并帮助她实现愿景,而金斯伯格是杜贝的个人激励师,把她从自己的壳里拉出来。一同工作让她们应对业务挑战的宽度倍增。Glassdoor的首席产品官安迪·陈曾经在Match Group为两人工作,他把她们两个描述为“心脏和大脑”。

陈说:“她俩的关系就是另一位你能够信任的最高管理者对你也很诚实,这让我羡慕不已。她们可以相互促进,而且确实恰好互补。”

Match Group任命金斯伯格为首席执行官后,她想说服公司董事会把杜贝任命为联席首席执行官。金斯伯格表示:“董事们看我的样子就像看有十个脑袋的怪物。但就我们俩来说,这样安排再合适不过了。”

两人都说如果没有对方,自己就绝对不会走到这么高的位置。在创业方面,研究早已表明和同样的女性企业主打交道能够帮助女性在创业时取得成功。但在美国公司中,这样的关系少之又少。2018年,LeanIn.org的职场女性年度报告聚焦于“唯一”现象,也就是说,进入企业最高层的女性总是缺少女性同事。这项研究发现,40%的女性高管表示她们是管理团队中的唯一女性成员,而且“唯一”的女性管理者考虑辞职的可能性比非唯一女性管理者高50%。

历史上将男性或女性送入高管办公室的品质,比如果断和高效,未必有助于培养职场友谊。倡导性别多样化的商业团体“30%俱乐部”(30% Club)的主席安·凯恩斯指出,“登上最高领导岗位的人”往往不重视工作中的亲密友谊。

杜贝和金斯伯格是例外。杜贝说:“人们抱怨说身居高位让人孤独,但我从来都没有这样的感觉。”

担任首席执行官期间,金斯伯格带领Match Group与Bumble和Facebook等新兴在线约会平台抗衡。她为Match Group从IAC剥离出来做了准备。她看到了Tinder的迅猛增长,并成为公司的首要创收品牌。她还主导了针对Bumble的知识产权官司。

杜贝担任首席执行官时更受关注。

她于2020年3月接替金斯伯格,当时新冠疫情刚刚开始。她领导公司转向远程工作并适应在线约会常态的变化,并且带领公司从2020年6月起彻底脱离IAC。她还直言不讳地批评苹果公司(Apple),指责其实施应用内支付规则时前后不一。

尽管金斯伯格已经不再是Match Group的高层成员,但杜贝仍然会向她寻求建议。杜贝称:“身居高位时你往往无法跟别人随意聊天。而对我来说,曼迪一直是那个我可以随时聊天的人。”

2021年9月,得克萨斯州通过SB8法令,禁止女性在怀孕六周后堕胎,从而成为美国率先推翻“罗诉韦德案”(Roe v. Wade)的州。杜贝开始考虑作为得州公司的女性首席执行官该怎样做出回应。她给金斯伯格打了电话,在后者的帮助下,她决定自己设立一只基金来资助需要跨州接受生殖医疗服务的员工,而不是由Match Group出资。她还在金斯伯格指导下向员工发文,其中写道:“公司通常不会表明政治立场,除非这和我们的业务有关。但对于此事,作为得州女性,我个人无法保持沉默。”

这项决定让通常寡言少语的杜贝成为第一位就反堕胎法表明立场的上市公司首席执行官。

不过,杜贝知道自己不想在首席执行官的位置上待太久。她说:“我从来没有奢望过做一家上市公司的首席执行官。”她告诉董事会将任职一年,但最终在这个位置上坐了大概两年半,直到游戏公司Zynga的总裁伯纳德·金成为她的继任者。

由于频繁重组,很难衡量Match Group在杜贝和金斯伯格任期内的增长率和业绩。她们在Match品牌下的第一个团队约有200人,而今天该公司员工数量已经超过2,500人。2017年年底,就在金斯伯格上任前夕,Match Group的营收规模为17亿美元,而杜贝卸任时其营收为30亿美元。从2018年金斯伯格升任首席执行官到2022年杜贝离任,Match Group的股价上涨了143%,但2020年Match Group彻底从IAC剥离,因此这一涨幅包含两个不同的实体。

再次相聚

杜贝离开Match Group后,她和金斯伯格开始考虑接下来做什么。外部因素阻断了金斯伯格的职业生涯。担任首席执行官则让杜贝筋疲力尽。最近两人都步入中年,而且都在考虑自己想怎样生活。杜贝说,她们在工作中相互思念,并且最看重有可能让她们再次共同工作的机会。

她们最终选择了私募股权公司Advent International,将担任运营合伙人,并以消费科技领域为主。该公司的投资对象包括Lululemon、数字银行Nubank,以及护发品牌Olaplex。

如果能够实现,两人可能就会按照她们的条件一起离开Match Group。相反,在好朋友以及好朋友的董事会需要她时,杜贝走出了自己的舒适区来担任首席执行官。杜贝说:“我们一起成长,一起在职场上迈进。”她们希望教给下一代经营者的是不光要扩大企业规模,还要像她们那样找到伙伴,前提是要有好运气。杜贝补充道:“良好的关系可以改变你的人生。”(财富中文网)

译者:Charlie

In February 2020, Mandy Ginsberg stepped down as the CEO of Match Group. Her home in Dallas had been destroyed by a tornado, and, shortly afterward, her doctor told her she needed surgery to remove the breast implants she’d received during a preventative double mastectomy; they’d been recalled for risk of cancer.

It was an overwhelming time in Ginsberg’s life, and not how she’d expected to end her 14-year career at the online dating giant. But by her side through it all—and ready to pick up the baton—was Shar Dubey.

Dubey, a longtime product leader at Match, took over as CEO of the Dallas-based, $3 billion tech company when Ginsberg left. It was anything but a typical handoff: Ginsberg and Dubey were best friends who’d worked as an inseparable unit across various jobs and corporations for two decades—so much so that they once tried to pitch Match Group’s board, without success, on a co-CEO structure. “The two people who have had the biggest impact on my life who I’m not related to by blood are my husband and Shar,” says Ginsberg.

Dubey spent two-and-a-half years in the CEO job—handling challenges of her own, including the pandemic and a Texas abortion ban—before stepping down in May. And by then, the pair were ready to reunite professionally. They both joined the private equity firm Advent International as operating partners in October.

Women who make it to the C-suite are often the only one in the room once they get there so very few can claim a friendship of peers like Ginsberg and Dubey’s. Their new roles represent not just the reunion of colleagues, friends, or “work wives,” but the next stage in a multi-decade partnership.

At Match, Dubey and Ginsberg wielded enormous cultural influence—their products changed the way people around the world meet, date, and marry. Now, they’re figuring out how to share what they’ve learned over the past two decades with a new crop of growth businesses as they work alongside each other again.

Rise to the top

Ginsberg and Dubey met at the software business i2 Technologies in Dallas in 2001, during the waning days of the dot-com boom. Dubey had just been promoted to director of product when Ginsberg joined as a marketing VP.

They were around the same age—Ginsberg was 31, Dubey was 30—but came from different backgrounds. Ginsberg had grown up in Dallas. She was a newly-divorced single mother of one who was outgoing and bubbly. Dubey, from Jamshedpur, India, was an introverted engineer, married to a graduate school classmate she’d reconnected with stateside.

Dubey was impressed with how Ginsberg could connect with people and make fast friends. Meanwhile, Dubey shared her analytical perspective with Ginsberg in conversations about their jobs and Ginsberg’s dating life. They became near-instant friends.

In 2006, Ginsberg left i2 to join Match Group, then a small but industry-leading company under the IAC umbrella. Online dating was in its infancy; only 3% of married couples at the time had met online, compared with almost half of new marriages today. Match was launching a second brand, Chemistry, and wanted Ginsberg to run it. Two weeks in, she asked if Dubey knew anyone who could help with product. In an uncharacteristically risky move, Dubey nominated herself—and got the job. “I knew nothing about the consumer internet,” Dubey recalls. “I knew nothing about online dating.”

Atop a small team of 25, the two executives learned the basics of early digital marketing and SEO. They launched a controversial TV campaign that attacked rival eHarmony for rejecting gay members. They later took their partnership to Match.com and another sister company, Tutor.com, later called the Princeton Review.

In 2016, Match Group CEO Greg Blatt called both executives back to the flagship. Ginsberg became CEO for Match Group, North America, and Dubey worked alongside her as president for the region. (Dubey also served a short stint as COO for the Match brand Tinder, turning the platform into a money-making machine.) By 2018, they’d both dropped “North America” from their titles. Ginsberg was CEO of the company, with Dubey by her side as president.

As they bonded professionally, Ginsberg and Dubey also grew their relationship outside of work. They cooked dinner together and went for walks in their Dallas neighborhoods. Sometimes, Blatt would call Ginsberg and ask if she knew where Dubey was—only to find out that the two were on vacation together. They often traveled to Europe with their old i2 friends. Ginsberg filled out Dubey’s daughter Maya’s elementary school applications, arguing that as an alumna of an American all-girls school she understood the task better. When Ginsberg welcomed her second child with her second husband in 2008, she asked whether Dubey would mind if she named her daughter Maya, too.

Ginsberg underwent preventative double mastectomy, hysterectomy, and oophorectomy procedures after testing positive for the BRCA1 gene, which is associated with a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancers. When Ginsberg woke up from her second mastectomy surgery in 2020, her husband and Dubey were the two people sitting bedside.

“A partnership like this is one in a million,” Ginsberg reflects. “Sometimes skill sets don’t overlap. Sometimes companies need different things. We looked up years into it and realized we had something special.”

Tale of two CEOs

As Ginsberg and Dubey climbed the corporate ladder together, Ginsberg was usually one rung ahead. According to colleagues, that pattern was a function of the pair’s strikingly different personalities—not a gulf in skill sets.

Dubey defaults to a heads-down approach. On business trips, she prefers to stay in her room and order room service, though Ginsberg often drags her down to happy hour. On planes, she works quietly on her laptop while Ginsberg chats up her seat mate.

Each woman has the skills the other feels she lacks. Dubey has often grounded Ginsberg and helped her execute her vision, while Ginsberg serves as Dubey’s personal hype-woman, prying her out of her shell. Working together has doubled their bandwidth to tackle business challenges. Andy Chen, chief product officer for Glassdoor, worked for the pair at Match Group, and describes them as “heart and head.”

“I’m so envious of this relationship that they have—another super senior executive leader that you can trust that is really honest with you,” he says. “They could push each other and they complemented each other really well.”

When Ginsberg was first tapped to serve as Match Group CEO, she tried to convince the company’s board to appoint Dubey as co-CEO. “Boards look at you like you have 10 heads,” Ginsberg says. “But in our context it would have made perfect sense.”

Both executives say neither would have risen so high without the other. In entrepreneurship, research has long shown that spending time with peer groups of fellow female business owners helps women thrive as founders. But in corporate America, those types of partnerships are exceedingly rare. In 2018, LeanIn.org focused its annual report on women in the workplace on the phenomenon of the “only”—that is, the woman who makes it to the top but has no female peers once she gets there. The research found that 40% of senior-level women reported being the only female executive on their leadership team. Women who were an “only” were 50% more likely to consider quitting their jobs.

The qualities that have historically propelled an executive of any gender to the corner office—decisiveness, high performance—aren’t necessarily those that help one foster workplace friendship. The “type of person who rises to the top” is often not a person who values close friendship at work, says Ann Cairns, chair of the 30% Club, a business group advocating for gender diversity.

Dubey and Ginsberg are exceptions. “People complain that it’s lonely at the top, but I never felt it,” Dubey says.

During Ginsberg’s tenure as chief executive, she worked to defend Match from upstart dating competitors Bumble and Facebook. She prepared Match to spin off from IAC. She oversaw the massive growth of Tinder as it became the company’s top revenue-generating brand. And she presided over a legal battle with Bumble over intellectual property.

Dubey earned even more attention as CEO.

She took over from Ginsberg in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began. She guided the company through its pivot to remote work and the changing norms of online dating, plus the full separation from IAC, which took effect in July 2020. She became a vocal critic of Apple for what she called an inconsistent application of in-app payment rules.

Even though Ginsberg was no longer in the Match C-suite, Dubey still turned to her for guidance. “At the top, often you can’t have that no-agenda conversation with someone. For me, it was always Mandy who I had that conversation with,” Dubey says.

In September 2021, Texas passed the law known as SB8, which banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a precursor to the nationwide overturning of Roe v. Wade. At the time, Dubey weighed how to respond as the female CEO of a Texas-based company. She called Ginsberg, who helped her decide to set up a fund of her own, rather than one paid for by Match, for employees who needed to travel to access reproductive health care. “The company generally does not take political stands unless it is relevant to our business,” Dubey wrote in a note to employees at the time, crafted with Ginsberg’s guidance. “But in this instance, I personally, as a woman in Texas, could not keep silent.”

The decision made the usually reticent Dubey the first public company CEO to take a stand on the anti-abortion law.

Still, Dubey knew the chief executive role wasn’t one she wanted to stay in for long. “It was never my ambition to be a public company CEO,” she says. She told the board she would stay in the job for a year; she ended up sticking around for two and a half until Match hired Bernard Kim, president of the gaming company Zynga, as her successor.

Frequent corporate restructuring makes it difficult to measure Match’s growth and performance during Dubey and Ginsberg’s tenures at the company. Their first team at the Match brand numbered about 200; today the company employs more than 2,500 people. At the end of 2017, just before Ginsberg took over, Match was a $1.7 billion business; by the time Dubey left, it was earning $3 billion in annual revenue. Its share price was up 143% between Ginsberg’s 2018 promotion and Dubey’s 2022 departure, although that increase measures the stock performance of two separate entities before and after the finalization of the business’s 2020 IAC spinoff.

Back together

Once Dubey left Match, she and Ginsberg pondered what to do next. Ginsberg’s career had been cut short by circumstance. Dubey was burnt out from her time as CEO. They had both recently turned 50 and were taking stock of how they wanted to spend their time. They missed each other in their professional lives and prioritized opportunities that would allow them to work together again, Dubey says.

They settled on the private equity firm Advent International, where they will work as operating partners focused on consumer technology. The firm’s investments include Lululemon, the digital bank Nubank, and the haircare brand Olaplex.

If the duo had their way, they would have left Match together, on their own terms. Instead, Dubey stepped outside her comfort zone to become a CEO when her best friend—and her board—needed her. “We’ve grown up together and we’ve grown into these jobs together,” Dubey says. They hope that they can teach the next generation of operators not just to scale their businesses, but—if they’re lucky—to find a partnership like their own. Dubey adds: “Good relationships can change your life.”

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