Dan Schulman will retire from PayPal at the end of the year, but he will remain on the company’s board of directors, PayPal announced on Thursday.
Schulman said it had been a huge privilege to lead PayPal for the past 8 1/2 years but said, “I’m at a point in my life where I want to devote more time to my passions outside the workplace. I remain 100 percent committed to working closely with the Board and my eventual successor for a smooth transition and to ensure we keep our positive momentum on track.”
Former eBay CEO and current Chairman of the PayPal Board John Donahoe praised Schulman, whom he hired in 2014 prior to the eBay-PayPal breakup in 2015, and Donahoe thanked him for committing to support a smooth transition. (Donahoe is also CEO of Nike.) The Board will retain a search firm to help find Schulman’s successor.
The announcement came as PayPal reported 4th quarter earnings and a week after PayPal announced it would lay off 7% of its employees.
PayPal reported net revenues of $7.4 billion in the fourth quarter, growing 7% and 9% on an FX-neutral basis (FXN) from Q4-2021. PayPal reported Total Payment Volume (TPV) of $357.4 billion, growing 5% and 9% FXN.
CNBC said that while activist investor Elliott Management had accumulated an undisclosed stake in PayPal last year, Schulman said the company had not pressured him and said Elliott Management managing partner Jesse Cohn (who had served on eBay’s board during a pressure campaign) had actually been “incredibly supportive.”
The following chart included in a presentation released with the fourth-quarter’s results shows growth that coincides with Schulman’s tenure at PayPal:
