City profiles

Dara Khosrowshahi Uber’s successful appeal to regain its taxi licence in London is “a victory” for Dara Khosrowshahi, 49, the chief executive, “who has been trying to reboot the company’s culture” following the disastrous regime of his predecessor, Travis Kalanick, said The New York Times. The ridehailing service has been granted a new 15-month licence by Westminster magistrates – provided it agrees to regular audits and a clean sweep of senior managers who approved the Greyball software used to dodge regulatory scrutiny. Regaining London, Uber’s biggest European market, was Khosrowshahi’s most significant “public test”, said Lex in the FT. His presence in court, and full disclosure of UK accounts – currently “funnelled” to a Dutch holding company – “would have helped even more”.

Whitney Wolfe Herd

The founder of Bumble – the female-centric dating site where “women make the first move” – was inspired by her upbringing in “superconservative” Salt Lake City, where the prevailing view was that “the woman must always wait for the man”, said Hilary Rose in The Times. Whitney Wolfe Herd, 28, however, cut her teeth in “the wild, wild west” of the business. Having moved to LA aged 22, she co-founded Tinder before leaving two years later in acrimonious circumstances. She sued Tinder for sexual harassment and discrimination, and settled out of court. Bumble, which launched in 2014, is now reportedly worth $1bn. One veteran online dater claims the men on the site are “a bit wet”; 33 million users clearly disagree.