PayPal scouts for successor as CEO Dan Schulman to retire at end of 2023

PayPal has begun a hunt for a new CEO who will fill in the shoes of Dan Schulman who is retiring from the online payments company at the end of 2023.

In late January, PayPal said it would lay off 2,000 employees, which equates to 7% of the company’s workforce. Schulman said in a statement at the time that PayPal was addressing the “challenging macroeconomic environment.”

Schulman, who became PayPal CEO after the split from eBay in 2015, notified the company of his decision to retire at the end of December, media reports suggested.

He will remain a member of PayPal’s board of directors, which is hiring a search firm to find a successor.

“I’m proud of what we have accomplished at PayPal and of the incredibly talented and committed people I work with every day,” Schulman said in a statement.

 “Together, we have reimagined financial services and e-commerce, and worked to improve the financial health of our customers.”

PayPal shares jumped by about 130% since the 2015 spinoff. But the company has lost roughly three-quarters of its value since the stock’s peak in July 2021.

Last summer, activist investor Elliott Management accumulated an undisclosed stake in PayPal.

The timing was right,” Schulman said. “It makes sense.”

PayPal announced Schulman’s upcoming departure alongside its fourth-quarter earnings report. The company said net revenue grew 7% year-over-year to $7.4 billion in the fourth quarter.