Meg Whitman
Meg Whitman was president and CEO of eBay from 1998 to 2008. When she first joined eBay, the company only had 30 employees. By the time she finished her tenure, eBay had grown to a global giant with more than 9,000 eomployess. Meg Whitman currently serves on the Board of Directors for Proctor & Gamble as well as Dreamworks.
Ms. Whitman was born and raised in Long Island, New York. She earned her economics degree from Princeton. After gradation, she went on to earn her MBA at the Harvard Business School.
Her first major position was with Procter & Gamble, where she gain invaluable experience in brand management. In 1981, she moved to Bain and Company, a consulting firm, and was eventually promoted to vice president. She moved through a succession of high-powered positions, including Senior Vice President of Marketing for the Walt Disney Company, President of Stride Rite shoe company, and President and CEO of Florists Transworld Delivery. Her last position before eBay was General Manager of Hasbro’s Preschool Division.
In 1998, Whitman took a big risk taking a job at the tiny eBay, taking a cubicle office like the thirty other employees. As Whitman said in a CosmoGirl! interview, “I moved in with the engineers for three months and effectively ran the technology division. I didn’t know very much about technology, and it was a bit like being in France—everyone is speaking French, and I don’t!”
Whitman also oversaw eBay’s initial public offering (IPO) of stock in September of 1998, and over the next five years helped eBay become a global corporate power. EBay became so successful that many online sellers even quit their day jobs so they could become fulltime eBay sellers. EBay actually is directly tied in to the success of thousands of small businesses, and in turn became a huge economic booster.
Whitman enforced a policy at eBay that required all the executives to post items for auction regularly, so they would know firsthand what was working for the website. “The great thing about running this company,” she told Brad Stone in Newsweek, “is that you know immediately what your customers think.”
In 2002, Fortune magazine named her one of the three most powerful women in business. By the following year EBay earned an estimated $2.7 billion that year, with $24 billion in completed auctions. At any given time on eBay, about twenty million items are up for sale.
More information on Meg Whitman:
Meg Whitman is currently planning a run for the governor of California as a Republican.
Meg Whitman retires from eBay.
Meg Whitman was interviewed by Fast Company.