eBay lost the head of one of its most important subsidiaries, eBay Enterprise, which has been wooing large retailers and brands to its technology platform through a number of new initiatives. News of the departure came as the National Retail Federation wrapped up its annual Big Store conference in New York City where eBay had a major presence on the agenda and on the exhibit hall floor.
eBay issued a press release on Wednesday to announce that Chris Saridakis, the president of eBay Enterprise, resigned for personal reasons. Saridakis had served as president of eBay Enterprise since June 2011, following the company’s acquisition of GSI Commerce (renamed eBay Enterprise in 2013).
On Monday eBay had announced at the NRF conference a new “ship-from-store” solution to help retailers easily turn their physical retail locations into virtual distribution centers by making their in-store inventory available as online inventory that could be shipped right from individual stores, a move seen as countering Amazon’s network of fulfillment centers. According to the Washington Post, eBay was at the NRF conference to tell retailers, “We’re the anti-Amazon,” quoting Ted McCaffrey, eBay Enterprise’s director of sales (he is actually Enterprise Sales Director of VendorNet, an eBay Enterprise company).
eBay recently lost the technologist behind its Marketplaces’ search engine Cassini, Hugh Williams. A company called Pivotal announced on Wednesday it had hired Williams as its senior vice president of research and development. In the press release announcing the news, Pivotal said William’s’ experience, and technical background reinforced the Pivotal leadership team, and said most recently, Williams had “spent four and a half years with eBay where he was responsible for a large cross-disciplinary team that turned around the Marketplaces business.”
eBay said it would conduct an external search for a successor to Saridakis. Until the search is completed, Tobias Hartmann, vice president, Omnichannel Operations and International, will serve as interim head of eBay Enterprise.
