eBay CEO to retire: reports

22-01-2008

by Stephen Errity

Reports say that eBay's chief executive Meg Whitman, in charge of the online auction giant for the last 10 years, is preparing to retire.

It is believed that a decision on Whitman's future could come within weeks and that John Donahoe, the head of eBay's auction business unit, is the leading candidate to replace her.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Whitman is said to have been delegating more responsibilities to her staff in the past few weeks in preparation for the move. There has been no official confirmation from eBay as yet that she intends to retire, though she has said in the past that she would stay no more than 10 years in the job.

eBay, which is scheduled to announce its fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday, has become one of the most-visited sites on the web under Whitman's guidance, but in recent years has been struggling to sustain the rapid growth that characterised its early years. A slowing of its core auctions business, rising competition from online retailers and problems with the acquisition of VoIP firm Skype have cut eBay's stock price nearly in half compared to its 2005 peak.

Whitman earned over USD11 million in 2006 and regularly appears in lists of the most powerful women in America. She joined eBay six months before its initial public offering in 1998 at a time when the company had only a few dozen employees. In the intervening years, Whitman has overseen more than 40 consecutive quarters of sequential revenue growth, with 1998's revenue of USD86 million ballooning to USD5.97 billion by last year. Profit has increased every year and the company now has 248 million registered users and 15,000 employees worldwide.