Pinterest has long been looking to monetize its social-networking site, and it’s been lining up some former eBay executives to help. The latest is Scott Schenkel, who had taken over as Interim CEO of eBay when Devin Wenig abruptly resigned 4 years ago.
Schenkel joined the Pinterest Board this month, joining former top eBay executive Jeff Jordan, who joined the board in 2011.
Also on the Pinterest board is Marc Steinberg of Elliott Management, which had targeted eBay in January 2019 when Schenkel was eBay Chief Financial Officer . When he took over as CEO from Devin Wenig in September of 2019, Schenkel began serving on the eBay board alongside Steinberg’s boss, Jesse Cohn.
Elliott Management began targeting Pinterest last summer, and the two companies entered into a cooperation agreement in December.
Elliott had likewise targeted eBay in 2019, and while Wenig had resisted Elliott’s pressure to sell off large chunks of eBay, Schenkel oversaw the beginning of its downsizing when he took over, including the sale of StubHub for $4 billion.
Pinterest sees advertising as a growth driver, and in May of this year, CEO Bill Ready announced it had selected Amazon as its first partner for third-party ads. Ready joined PayPal in 2013 after its then parent company eBay acquired his company Braintree and later presided over commerce and payments at Google.
Scott Schenkel left eBay when it announced a permanent replacement for Wenig, current eBay CEO Jamie Iannone, in April 2020. While his LinkedIn profile indicates he has not landed another corporate position, he continues to sit on the board of NetApp, which he joined in 2017. He joined the board of Forter in April of 2022, though that does not currently appear on his LinkedIn profile.
