Lyft founders step down as president, CEO

The co-founders of U.S.-based ride-hailing service Lyft on Monday said they plan to step down from their roles as president and CEO of the company.

In a news release, Lyft co-founders Logan Green, who serves as the company’s CEO, and John Zimmer, who serves as its president, said they will transition to non-executive roles as chair and vice chair of the company’s board of directors. 

Green will step down from his role as Lyft CEO on April 17 and Zimmer will transition to his new role on June 30, according to the news release. 

The company said that David Rischer, a former executive at Amazon and Microsoft, will replace Green as the company’s CEO after a “thorough search process conducted by the Lyft board with the assistance of a leading executive search firm.”

“Building Lyft with John over the last 16 years has been the adventure of a lifetime. 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,” Green said in a statement.

“In a field of accomplished candidates, David stood head and shoulders above the rest,” he said of his successor, adding that Rischer has the “right energy, ambition, and experience to lead Lyft into the future.” 

The leadership change comes a month after the company disclosed a $588 million loss for the final three months of last year, more than doubling the amount reported in the same 2021 period. 

The company, a rival to popular ride-hailing service Uber, also laid off 13 percent of its employees last November, citing growing concerns about inflation and a possible recession. 

Lyft also announced that current Lyft board chairman Sean Aggarwal will transition to the role of lead independent director.

Rischer said he was “gobsmacked” when asked to consider taking over Lyft, in a statement in Monday’s news release.

“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,” he added.

“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.”