PayPal has officially named Alex Chriss as the new CEO of the company. As the current executive of Intuit, Chriss is expected to lead the fintech firm by next month. Meanwhile, Dan Schulman, the longtime CEO of PayPal will still be the company's director until May 2024.
Alex Chriss is PayPal's New CEO
PayPal Holdings. Inc. officially appointed Alex Chriss as the President and CEO of the company. He will take over Schulman on Sep. 27, according to CNBC.
Earlier this year, Schulman already announced that he won't be staying at PayPal for too long. Back in February, the 65-year-old executive confirmed his retirement in late 2023.
Since 2014, Schulman has been in charge of leading PayPal. It was in the time of the pandemic when the company found its groove, especially with the launch of the new online payment systems.
Between 2015 and 2022, PayPal saw its payment volume skyrocket five times. It ballooned to $1.36 trillion at that time. Last year, the company managed to hit $27.5 billion in revenue which is equivalent to three times its revenue a year before.
Unfortunately, PayPal's shares did not translate well this year. In fact, it plunged to 60% as more fintech firms struggled in the industry.
PayPal began to apply cost-cutting strategies to save about $1.3 billion for this year alone. Additionally, it previously laid off nearly 2,000 workers which instantly gave the company a $600 million boost.
Who Was Alex Chriss Before He Became PayPal CEO?
Per Business Insider, Chriss has been running Intuit for the past 19 years. His LinkedIn suggests that one of his most significant achievements in Intuit is the delivery of Mailchimp and QuickBooks to both small and medium-sized business customers. He handled a division composed of 8,000 persons for this task.
Another legacy that Chriss left on Intuit is the acquisition of Mailchimp which cost $12 billion. With this, the company saw its much-need expansion of customers and platform features.
According to the chair of the PayPal Board of Directors, John Donahoe, Alex is the perfect leader who can manage PayPal and boost its growth for the next years to come.
"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," Donahoe says.
The arrival of Alex as the new PayPal President does not mean that Schulman will leave soon. He will stay until the next annual meeting of stockholders as one of PayPal's board of directors in May 2024.
In other news, PayPal has graced the crypto market after launching PayPal USD, its very own US dollar stablecoin.
