Lyft Inc (NASDAQ:LYFT) has appointed a new chief executive as its two co-founders step back from managing the ride-sharing company, the Wall Street Journal reported.
David Risher, who has been a Lyft board member since 2021, previously worked in management at Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp before starting a childhood-reading non-profit in 2009.
READ: Lyft slumps by a third on losses and downbeat forecast
He will take over from Logan Green, who co-founded Lyft with current president John Zimmer. The pair will retain their seats on the board but not participate in running Lyft day-to-day.
“The macroeconomy is tough and the world is full of some uncertainty and that’s a real factor for sure and, then, when you zoom in one click, the competitive environment is tough. We have a very aggressive - very aggressive - competitor,” Risher said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“I think being a strong number two is a good place to be,” he added. “I like where we are, but we’ve got real work to do to fight it out a little bit.”
Lyft shares rose around 4% in after-hours trading on Monday following the news.
In February, Lyft shares slumped by a third as the California-based Uber rival posted another big loss in spite of record revenues.
Lyft has never posted a pre-tax profit, with the 2022 deficit second only in size behind 2020’s losses of US$1.75bn.
Sales rose by 28% to US$4bn in 2022 as passenger numbers rose to more than 20,000 in the final three months of the year, up 8.7% year on year though this was little changed from the previous three months.
The ride-hailing business posted a net loss for the year of US$1.58bn, or US$4.47 net loss per share, after share option costs of US$767mln.
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