PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

PayPal Chief Enterprise Services Officer Aaron Karczmer to Leave Company

PayPal building

PayPal Executive Vice President and Chief Enterprise Services Officer Aaron Karczmer will leave the company on April 30.

The company and Karczmer entered into a separation agreement on Wednesday (Feb. 7), PayPal said in a Monday (Feb. 12) filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The agreement provides for severance pay, a bonus, health benefits, equity award treatment and outplacement services, the filing said.

This news comes about a week after PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said 2024 is a “transition year” for the company.

He said this Wednesday during an earnings call in which PayPal reported a number of flat metrics, including slowing growth and a churning of inactive accounts.

During the call, Chriss said that while the latest quarter’s results were “solid, we know there is still much room for improvement, and we are committed to making the necessary changes to our business and how we invest and operate to get it right.”

As part of that restructuring, PayPal is reducing its headcount. The company said Jan. 30 that it will eliminate 2,500 positions, or about 9% of its workforce, this year in an effort to “right-size” its workforce.

Those layoffs come a year after PayPal cut 2,000 jobs, or about 7% of its workforce at the time, and about five months after Chriss was appointed as CEO.

When announcing the latest round of layoffs, Chriss said in a letter to staff: “While I have been encouraged by the innovation our team is delivering, we must execute faster and ensure we are focused on solving our customers’ most critical needs and problems.”

PayPal named Chriss as its president and CEO in August after a months-long search for a replacement for Dan Schulman, who had announced in February 2023 that he planned to retire from those roles. Schulman joined PayPal in 2014 and had led the company since it separated from eBay and became an independent public company.

When announcing the appointment, John Donahoe, chairman of the PayPal board, said that Chriss, a longtime Intuit executive, “is the perfect leader to take PayPal forward and accelerate the company’s growth opportunities.”

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024