Greg Blatt
Greg R. Blatt (b. 1968) is a Dallas-based executive. Beginning his career in corporate law before becoming general counsel for Martha Stewart Omnimedia and InterActivCorp (IAC), Blatt eventually went on to become CEO of Match.com, IAC, Match Group and Tinder.
| Greg Blatt | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Greg Blatt |
| 🏡 Residence | New York City, NY |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Colgate University |
| 💼 Occupation | |
Early Life[edit]
Blatt was born in Weston, a suburb about 15 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in the small town, where his father worked as a management consultant and exporter and his mother was a therapist. Blatt has described his father as an influence in his life who taught him to trust his gut, and has called him a “mad genius” who had strong opinions and wasn’t afraid to vocalize them.
According to Blatt, his academic career “continued to improve from kindergarten on. I think I graduated 50th or 60th in a class of 150 from public high school, but my performance improved from there.” He applied to eight universities and was accepted to Colgate University in February of the second semester, saying of the time “I like to say I was one of the last 24 people to be admitted.”
Blatt majored in English and minored in economics during his time at Colgate University, but has said he didn’t give much thought to how he could use the two subjects toward a future career. “When it was time to go, I was the proverbial college kid who was like, ‘wait a second. I have to leave?’’ A friend of his was planning on moving out to Telluride, Colorado to become “a ski bum” and Blatt decided to join him.
He graduated from Colgate University in 1990 and soon after made the move to Telluride. During that time he spent a period of it living in a tent and also did some traveling, visiting Europe and San Francisco. To make a living he would take up odd jobs such as painting houses, bussing tables and bartending, and has said “If I could be as good at [being CEO] as I was at bartending I will do well.”
Blatt knew he liked to write, read, analyze, argue, et cetera from his time as an English major, and he began to play with the idea of law school as a potential way to turn his interests into a career. He applied and was accepted to Columbia Law School, which he described as “athletic training for the brain.” Speaking of his early formative years in higher education, Blatt has said that if he had one thing to do over again, it would be to have a more realistic understanding of the professional adult landscape than he did at the time.
Career[edit]
In his last year of law school, Blatt was hired as an associate by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a mergers and acquisitions law firm known for being both one of the best in New York City as well as one of the most demanding places to work. Staying there for eighteen months, he has called the experience “intense,” often staying at the office for days on end with his roommate even at one point calling the office to check on him because he had not seen or heard from him in so long. However, he has credited his time at the firm with giving him invaluable lessons about work ethic, perfectionism and teamwork.
In 1997 Blatt became an associate at the entertainment law firm Grubman Indursky & Schindler PC, believing that corporate law was not the direction he wished to continue to move in. During his time in Telluride he had dabbled with writing a novel, and took the position thinking that he could make connections through it that would aid in a career transition towards entertainment. However, he quickly began working very closely with one of the firm’s many celebrity clients Martha Stewart, who had recently formed the company Martha Stewart Omnimedia and was in the process of gaining direct ownership of all of her brand assets.
When Martha Stewart decided she wanted to take her company public, she asked Blatt to join her as general counsel and lead the transition. On its first day trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Martha Stewart Omnimedia saw its initial public offering price nearly triple and Blatt remained an integral part of the team for four years. It was in this position that Blatt has said he was first able to garner executive experience, approaching the position through a legal lens but becoming heavily involved in the business.
At the recommendation from a former colleague, in 2003 Blatt was offered the general counsel position at InterActivCorp (IAC), a holding company with a number of businesses under its umbrella that were early embracers of the internet such as Expedia, Ask.com, Ticketmaster, Hotels.com and the Home Shopping Network. In the position, he began to work closely with CEO Barry Diller, developing a mentor/mentee relationship with the executive.
In 2009, Diller asked Blatt to move from New York City to Dallas, Texas to become CEO of Match.com The company was acquired by IAC a decade earlier and had been one of the first modern dating websites on the internet, but in recent years had begun to lose its inertia. Blatt has said “that’s where my ‘official’ business career started.” He ran Match.com for two years, building the company back up both through profits and subscriber base.
Barry Diller made the decision to step down as CEO of IAC in 2011 and brought Blatt in as his replacement for the position. In his first year as chief executive officer, IAC saw a 26 percent increase in annual revenues and a 75 percent profits increase, to $2.1 billion and $174 million respectively.
During this time, Match.com became one of the company’s strongest brands, and the multi-brand company Match Group was created to hold IAC’s entire dating website portfolio. When it came time for that company to push for an initial public offering, Blatt became executive chairman for Match Group in order to facilitate the move as he had with Martha Stewart Omnimedia years prior. When it made its debut in 2015, Match Group had a valuation of $2.9 million, and that year Blatt became chairman and chief executive officer of the company.
Amongst Match Group’s businesses was the dating app Tinder which was quickly becoming one of its biggest brands. To help manage the exponential growth of the company, Blatt became executive chairman of it in 2016 and subsequently chief executive officer by the end of that year. He remained CEO at both companies simultaneously until January of 2018 when he made the decision to move on from the IAC family of businesses.
Since 2021 Blatt has been the lead director on the board of directors for the Dallas-based biotechnology company Vaxxinity Inc.
Personal Life[edit]
Blatt enjoys traveling, preferring to take beach vacations in the summer and ski trips in the winter. He also often goes on fishing trips with his brother. He is a fan of the New England Patriots. Blatt has appeared as a guest on Martha Stewart’s online web series, calling back from his time as a bartender to make classic cocktails such as margaritas and bloody marys.
