Lyft, a U.S. ride-hailing company that served 45 million riders in 2022, announced a change in leadership earlier this week.
Since the company was created in 2012, co-founder Logan Green has occupied the seat of CEO. Now, over a decade later, Green and Lyft’s co-founder and president John Zimmer are stepping down from their executive positions to make way for the company’s next era of management.
David Risher is next in line for the position of Lyft CEO and will take up the position when Green resigns on April 17. Zimmer will leave his position on June 30 this year, and both will transition to non-executive roles on the company’s board of directors, Green as chair and Zimmer as vice-chair.
Risher took a seat at Lyft’s board of directors’ table back in 2021. In his new executive position, he’ll be responsible for all of Lyft’s operations. He formerly served as Amazon’s first head of product and head of U.S. retail and was the e-commerce giant’s 37th employee. Risher also spent time as a general manager at Microsoft and co-founded Worldreader, a nonprofit that works to help kids read and understand several books a year through its digital library platform.
“When the [Lyft] search committee asked me to consider this role, at first I was gobsmacked, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the competitive spirit I learned at Microsoft, the customer obsession I learned at Amazon and the do-more-with-less lessons I learned leading Worldreader are exactly what Lyft needs right now,” Risher said in a statement. “I am honored to step into the CEO role at such an important moment in the company’s history, and am prepared to take this business to new levels of success.”
Lyft’s leadership change comes at a time when the company is optimistic about its future growth outlook. Lyft reported a substantial increase in revenue last year. The company secured $4.1 billion in 2022, amounting to 28 percent more than its $3.2 billion total in 2021. As for quarterly financial results, Lyft rounded out 2022 with $1.2 billion earned in Q4. The company expects to pull in $975 million in revenue in Q1 2023 and will announce its results in early May.
At this juncture, Lyft’s current leaders will focus on supporting a smooth transition of responsibilities to Risher as well as ensuring the continued growth of the company’s mission, according to a company release.
“Building Lyft with John over the last 16 years has been the adventure of a lifetime,” Green said in a statement. “Billions of rides later, our industry is defined by the model of ridesharing that Lyft pioneered. All founders eventually find the right moment to step back and the right leaders to take their company forward.”
The Silicon Valley-based company has offices across the country. In addition to its San Francisco headquarters, it operates a Seattle office in Pioneer Square and a New York office in Manhattan. Lyft is actively hiring for an array of U.S.-based positions, including roles in product, people, operations, data analytics, finance and more.
