Tinder Hires A Handful Of New Country Managers To Aide International Expansion

30th March 2017 Simon Edmunds

Tinder has expanded its international team in recent months, all part of the company’s efforts to boost paid subscriptions and continue its global expansion.

It was announced earlier this year that Tinder had hired former Twitter manager Alexey Shelestenko to lead operations in Russia.

Shelestenko worked as Twitter’s Media Partnerships Manager for three years, after spending six years as a Product Marketing Manager at Google.

Tinder has now filled a further four international roles, including poaching Happn’s ex-head of growth, acquisition and content, Morad Adjaoud, to lead European, Middle Eastern and African growth.

Prior to spending just under two years at Happn, Adjaoud worked at French-based media company MadMix Digital and was Chief Operating Officer at marketing agency Joule.

Tinder has also hired a UK Country Manager, Laura Roche Camera, who joins from Hastings Direct, where she spent under two years as head of customer marketing and digital.

Ekaterina Hadjipetkova has also joined the Hollywood-based dating app’s team as French Country Manager, having previously worked as Growth Project Manager for BlaBlaCar.

Finally, Ryo Umezawa will be taking on the role of Country Manager for Japan after 12 years as Director of Tokyo-based venture incubator J-Seed Ventures.

The news of the hires, reported by CNBC, came alongside some interesting stats about Tinder’s growth from its Vice President of International, Derek Callow.

Callow said the number of Tinder swipes in Europe increased by 63% from 2015 to 2016, and the app has “tens of millions of active users worldwide”.

The Tinder VP also said the company expects paid memberships to increase by 15% in 2017.

This month, Tinder announced its first partnership in Southeast Asia, teaming up with taxi cab app Grab for a celebrity lift-sharing promotion.

Yesterday Tinder also revealed it was releasing a desktop web version of its dating service – a move that ties in with its global expansion plans – which is currently being tested in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, and Sweden.