eBay's PayPal President Steps Down

Auction site eBay Inc. on Thursday said PayPal president Jeff Jordan, who has led the business since 2004, will step down this fall to spend more time with family.

The "planned departure" puts Rajiv Dutta in the No.1 spot to head eBay's PayPal. The division, which has more than 100 million users, reached $1 billion in revenue last year.

Jordan's departure took Max Levchin off guard. Levchin, who co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel, then sold the company to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, said "I'm not really sure why he decided to leave, but I do know the giant machine that processes money" no longer depends on any one executive."

PayPal has matured and "executives know how to make the trains run on-time," said Levchin, now chairman and CEO at media-sharing site Slide Inc. "Jordan is a bright guy, personable, radiates energy and has a great spark of creativity that makes you feel like you're still working for a startup," he said. "Rajiv is a polished financial guy; one of those people who never gets a number wrong in an analyst call."

Dutta's appointment to PayPal comes less than a year after being named to head eBay's Skype Internet phone unit. He served as eBay's chief financial officer and head of eBay strategy from 2001 through 2005.

PayPal's importance to eBay expands as competition from other Internet companies mounts. Google Inc. recently announced an online checkout system that offers some of the same features, but that didn't seem to faze at least one analyst.

"Jeff is a very talented executive and has done a good job in every position he had in the company," said Steve Weinstein, vice president and senior research analyst for interactive commerce and media at Pacific Crest Securities. "They are putting Rajiv Dutta in charge of PayPal, and I do think they've put a good person in place."

Other management changes include Henry Gomez, general manager of Skype North America, was named to the newly created position of chief marketing officer and director of country operations worldwide for Skype. Don Albert, director of business development for Skype North America, will assume Gomez's former job.

Shopping.com President and CEO Lorrie Norrington steps in to also take responsibility for eBay International, effective immediately. Norrington replaces Matt Bannick, who will oversee the company's corporate philanthropy initiatives.

Shopping.com vice president Josh Silverman becomes the unit's general manager. Silverman, most recently vice president of products for Shopping.com, co-founded the Evite online invitation service now owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp.