She used to manage 3 employees. Now she oversees 24. Welcome to the age of the megamanager.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Match Group manager Chine Mmegwa sat at her desk in a New York office, looking up at her team through a mounted TV screen.

The meeting was much like others she'd led during her first few years at the dating-app company, only with a lot more faces. That's because she now oversees two-dozen employees, including six direct reports. Before November, she oversaw a team of just three people and had one direct report.

Mmegwa's broader mandate reflects a new normal in corporate America, where fewer middle managers are keeping tabs on more workers. Decisions now move faster, Mmegwa said, but nearly every minute is spoken for.

"I have to manage my time much more rigidly," said Mmegwa, 35, senior vice president of strategy, corporate development, and business operations at Match Group. "My calendar is my guidepost."

Corporate America's Great Flattening

In the past few years, the ranks of middle managers — bosses who sit between executive leaders and frontline staff — have been shrinking. Companies such as Meta, Citigroup, UPS, and Amazon have moved to streamline operations amid heightened economic uncertainty and rising AI spending.

Employers advertised 12.3% fewer middle-manager jobs in 2025 than in 2024, though listings overall also declined, according to job site Indeed.

Now, the remaining middle managers are becoming "megamanagers," tasked with overseeing larger teams. A January Gallup survey shows that the average number of people directly reporting to managers rose to 12.1 last year from 10.9 in 2024.

Match Group, owner of more than 20 dating apps, including Tinder, Hinge, and OKCupid, is no exception to the trend. The Dallas, Texas-based company reduced its workforce by 13%, or about 325 employees, in early 2024. At the time, Match Group was facing pressure from activist investors over a declining Gen Z user base. It didn't cite AI as a reason.

"We restructured mainly around removing management layers," Match Group Chief Operating Officer Hesam Hosseini told Business Insider. "The idea was to just move faster."

Last year, Zillow Group cofounder Spencer Rascoff took the top job and embarked on a turnaround, which included additional training for the company's new and midlevel managers. For example, a full-day, in-person workshop was created to help them strengthen how they lead, with a focus on topics such as building team trust. Mmegwa participated and said it was valuable.

"People management is often underestimated in terms of how challenging it is," she said.

When asked if she got a pay bump with the new role, she laughed. "I think you should assume that I'm a rational person."

Fewer layers, longer hours

The recent virtual discussion Mmegwa led included three back-to-back meetings lasting about 90 minutes. Employees from three teams came on and off camera throughout, and one member participated in person. They explored ways they could apply research and survey data they'd collected to their product-development pipeline.

When it was all over, Mmegwa knew exactly what she wanted her reports to do next — an outcome she said would've taken a lot more time and effort to reach if most of them had still been reporting to other managers.

Prior to the restructuring, "we had more meetings than we needed to have," she said.

Still, Mmegwa is now logging about 10 hours more a week overall due to the greater number of people she oversees and because they span three continents.

In addition to leading group meetings and regularly talking business with external partners, she conducts weekly one-on-ones with her direct reports and twice-monthly one-on-ones with the rest of her team.

The trade-offs of megamanagement

Making a workforce leaner can remove bottlenecks, clarify accountability, and give high-performing teams more access to the C-suite, said Chris Kaufman, a leadership consultant in Detroit. Yet the shift often comes with trade-offs.

As middle managers take on larger teams, they can find themselves acting more like firefighters, responding to immediate issues rather than leading strategically, he said.

Another potential downside is that workers can become disengaged if managers are too busy to help them solve problems, dole out compliments, or show appreciation, said Allison Vaillancourt, an executive at HR benefits-consulting firm Segal.

"When people don't feel valued, they either start thinking about leaving or doing just enough to keep their jobs," she said.

Mmegwa strives to keep her relationships with her team strong by getting to know everyone's interests outside work. Recently, she said she learned that one of her team members ran a marathon.

"By keeping those personal details in mind, I'm able to lead with empathy," she said. "People perform better when they feel genuinely cared about."

'Everybody levels up'

Of course, things don't always go as planned. Reports will sometimes ask Mmegwa to join a meeting that wasn't on her calendar, requiring her to adjust her schedule on the fly. Other times, she may need to encourage them to make decisions on their own.

"I can't be a manager of this many people and still be the go-to person for every single need," Mmegwa said. Early on, she said she asked everyone on her team: What are the decisions you can make without me?

Encouraging staffers to work as independently as possible is essential to making Match Group successful as a flatter organization, Mmegwa said. She wants her people to have enough faith in themselves to feel confident calling the shots.

"This whole thing only works if everybody levels up," she said.