David Marcus, president and chief executive officer of eBay (EBAY)’s fast-growing payments unit PayPal, is stepping down from his position to join Facebook (FB) as VP of Messaging Products.
In a public Facebook post, Marcus writes about the move, noting: “I thought long and hard about how I could express the range of emotions that are going through me as I write this post, and to put it simply…it’s hard.”
Marcus joined PayPal as VP of mobile in 2011 through Facebook’s acquisition of his company, Zong, and was responsible for leading PayPal’s mobile payments business, before taking on the role of president the following year. PayPal’s leadership team will report to eBay chief executive officer John Donahoe until a new president is named.
In his Facebook post, Marcus also said that he decided to join Facebook after a get together with Mark Zuckerberg:
“Mark shared a compelling vision about Mobile Messaging,” he writes. “At first, I didn’t know whether another big company gig was a good thing for me, but Mark’s enthusiasm, and the unparalleled reach and consumer engagement of the Facebook platform ultimately won me over. So… yes. I’m excited to go to Facebook to lead Messaging Products. And I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty again attempting to build something new and meaningful at scale.”
Facebook welcomed Marcus in a blog post, explaining his new role with the social networking giant:
“Messaging is a core part of Facebook’s service and key to achieving our mission of making the world more open and connected. Every day around 12 billion messages are sent on Facebook, and in April we announced that Messenger, our standalone messaging app, is now used by more than 200 million people every month. We’re excited by the potential to continue developing great new messaging experiences that better serve the Facebook community and reach even more people, and David will be leading these efforts.”
In his new role Marcus will not oversee WhatsApp, which Facebook says will continue to operate as a separate company and keep its branding in tact.
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