Auction Site Ebay CEO Stepping Down

January 24, 2008

(Long Island, N.Y.) Chief Executive of EBay, the worlds biggest online auction site, Meg Whitman has announced that she will be stepping down as the company’s CEO this coming March 31st, 2008 to give way for fresh leadership in the company and to take on new endeavors for her career. She will remain a member of the board of directors for the company.

Replacing her will be John Donahoe, 47, who was hired in 2005 by Whitman herself and is currently serving as the Head of Marketplace for Ebay. Her departure coincides with her long time mantra that every CEO should step down after 10 years to inject new perspectives and ideas into the company. She was elevated as the CEO of Ebay on March 1998. “It’s time for eBay, and this community, to have a new leadership team, a new perspective, and a new vision,” Meg Whitman quoted in her company’s blog.

“With humor, smarts and unflappable determination, Meg took a small, barely known online auction site and helped it become an integral part of our lives,” Pierre Omidyar, eBay’s founder and chairman, said in a statement. “We’re all enormously grateful that Meg dedicated herself to stewarding eBay through its 10 most formative years.”

Ebay started roughly in the online auction business, but in the 10 years that Meg Whitman served as the CEO she transformed it from a rugged business into one of the most innovative and influential sites on the internet. She leaves in the wake of the company a growth for their quarterly report which would be a good legacy for any CEO to depart.

Experts though have criticized her the last year for not making enough decisions and moves to counter that of growing rivals such as Amazon.com resulting into some down times for the company last year. “Whitman wasn’t as innovative as her counterparts at Amazon and elsewhere…They definitely need a bit of a change of direction,” said Aaron Kessler, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. “The biggest challenge is buyer activity. There’s been buyer fatigue in the last year or so, with fewer people coming to the site and coming less often.”

Posted by News LI Editor · Edited by Brianna - Filed Under Technology