Intuit Inc. executive Alex Chriss will serve as the next leader of PayPal Holdings Inc., the digital payments giant said Monday.
Chriss, an Intuit
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veteran of nearly two decades who has most recently served as the company’s general manager of its small-business and self-employed group, will succeed PayPal
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Chief Executive Dan Schulman, who announced earlier this year that he planned to step down around the end of 2023.
“With his depth of experience in product development, his passion for serving customers and his longstanding commitment to empowering and enabling small businesses, and his proven track record of developing and inspiring his team, Alex is the perfect leader to take PayPal forward and accelerate the company’s growth opportunities,” PayPal Chair John Donahoe said in a release.
Chriss will assume the role of PayPal CEO Sept. 27, at which point he will also join the board of directors. Schulman plans to stay on the board until May 2024.
PayPal shares were up nearly 2% shortly after Monday’s open.
Chriss said in a release the he would look “to build on PayPal’s remarkable history and draw on its unique capabilities to deliver outstanding products and services to businesses and consumers.”
PayPal shares have been on a tumultuous ride since the company separated from eBay Inc. in 2015. PayPal was a pandemic darling that benefited from a rush of new interest in digital payments in the stay-home economy, and at one point the company was worth more than Mastercard Inc.
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The shares have since pulled back sharply from their pandemic-era highs, however.
Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev said Chriss, who he deems “somewhat of a surprise” hire, “will be inheriting a challenged but not un-fixable story.”
“First and foremost, PayPal will need to change the Apple Pay share-loss narrative,” Dolev said in a note to clients. “This is the #1 drag on the stock. He will also have to decide whether the PayPal and Venmo brands should be combined.”
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