the resignation of the founders of the company “Lyft”; David Risher has been appointed CEO

Lyft’s founders said Monday they would step down from their day-to-day responsibilities at the company, which has been beset by layoffs and disappointing financial results even as Uber, its biggest competitor, is boosted.

They said the founders — Logan Green, CEO of Lyft, and John Zimmer, its chairman — will remain on the company’s board.

After founding Lyft in 2012, Mr. Green and Mr. Zimmer, both now 39, were prominent figures in its early days. They presented Lyft as a friendly alternative to Uber and its aggressive CEO, Travis Kalanick, and avoided many of the controversies that surrounded their competitor.

It was easy to identify which vehicles Lyft was driving when the company started. They often had a fuzzy pink mustache stuck into their front grille, and Lyft passengers were encouraged for a time to sit in the front with the driver.

But Lyft, like many others, has been unable to turn a profit despite years of rapid growth, and recently it has fallen further behind Uber in ride-hailing while failing to branch out into other areas, such as food delivery.

David Risher, CEO of a nonprofit organization called Worldreader and a member of Lyft’s board of directors, will replace Mr. Green as CEO. Mr. Green’s last day will be April 17, and he will become Chairman of the Board. The company said Mr. Zimmer will leave his current position at the end of June and become vice president.

“As I pass the baton to David, I want to share this: We still have an incredible opportunity to push the boundaries on how transportation can help connect people and build a better future,” Mr. Green said in a blog post.

Mr. Green and Mr. Zimmer linked their interest in improving transportation and reducing traffic through passenger transportation services. Although the business was much smaller than Uber, they saw promise in 2017 when a campaign to take down the Uber app took off and attracted interest in Lyft.

But pundits said they squandered their short edge, making bets that lacked ambition, on small businesses like scooters and bicycles.

Lyft’s business has been slow to recover from the shutdowns in the early days of the pandemic, as driver supply problems caused high fares and long passenger wait times. Lyft’s stock price is down below $10, down from about $40 a year ago and nearly $80 at its peak.

The news of the resignations that was It was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journalled to a rise in the company’s share price in after-hours trading.

Mr. Resher, 57, was a general manager at Microsoft and vice president of Amazon in the 1990s before founding Worldreader, which helps kids access digital books.

“John and Logan came up with this great idea that really defined an entire sector years ago,” he said in an interview Monday. “And like many entrepreneurs, along the way they’re a good bunch, and then they run some experiments that maybe didn’t work out the way they expected. Then the pandemic hit, and that kind of changed the deck again.”

Mr. Resher said the search for a new leader began late last year when Mr. Green told the board he was considering stepping down. Although Lyft may be an underdog to Uber, he said his company could attract customers differently.

“When I look at the 800-pound gorilla, I see a company that I think is very business model-driven. But we’re going to be very customer-driven,” Mr. Richer said.

Early in the pandemic, Lyft and Uber were roughly on par: The vast majority of their businesses had to close, and they laid off many of their employees.

Analysts and former employees said Uber, which has a global presence that Lyft lacks, rebounded more quickly, in part because its worldwide availability and food delivery kept drivers on its platform and lessened the impact of the pandemic.

Uber has also invested more in financial incentives to persuade drivers to return to the platform after the pandemic subsides, while Lyft initially did not have enough drivers to meet surging passenger demand.

In November, Lyft laid off 13 percent of its employees. Then, in February, it spooked investors when its financial forecast for the year fell short of theirs, sending its share price plummeting. Lyft said at the time that it needed to lower prices to be more competitive.

Lyft posted a record $1.2 billion in revenue last quarter — on top of $588 million in losses.

On the other hand, Uber reported $8.6 billion in revenue and told investors that it expects to post an operating profit sometime this year, indicating that its business is on the way to a boost.

Tom White, senior research analyst at financial firm DA Davidson, said he views the leadership change as a “potentially modest positive.”

A new leader, he said in an email, “could indicate an increased willingness to expand Lyft’s strategic slot a bit as it relates to other adjacent products (delivery?), partners, or ways to create value.”