Hinge is growing while online dating competitors are struggling. Its new CEO explains why
March 17, 2026
Anyone who is single will tell you that dating in 2026 is a struggle. Digital burnout, combined with financial pressures, a loneliness epidemic, shifting gender norms, and increasingly rigid beauty standards have led many young adults to withdraw from the dating scene, in what the Institute of Family Studies has dubbed a “dating recession.” This is despite technological advances, such as AI-driven matchmaking, claiming to make the process of finding a partner more efficient than ever.
Into this complex landscape, enter Jackie Jantos, the new CEO of Hinge. Jantos took over at the end of last year, following the departure of the company’s founder, Justin McLeod, who had run the company since its 2011 launch. (McLeod is now working on an AI-first dating app.) In 2018, Hinge was acquired by Match Group, which owns a portfolio of dating platforms, including Match.com and Tinder. Jantos, who previously held leadership roles at Spotify and Coca-Cola, was an internal hire: She joined Hinge in 2021 as CMO, adding the president title to her résumé in March 2025. “Justin and I had been plotting this path for a while,” she tells me. “In some ways it felt like a big shift, stepping into the role, but in other ways, it’s just really familiar and we’re continuing to do what we’ve always done.”
