PayPal has gone through significant leadership changes since September, when Chriss — a two-decade veteran in the financial services space — left Intuit to lead PayPal. 

In November, PayPal appointed a new chief people officer to its roster and filled several other senior leadership positions. In March, the company added a chief enterprise officer. 

Venkatesan joins the payments firm after eight years with Walmart. Previously, he held leadership roles at internet giant Yahoo, marketing software platform Marketo and ticket resale marketplace StubHub. 

The executive's experience at a major retailer brings a familiarity with payments that will help in a strategic role, according to Brian Jackson, research director at IT research firm Info-Tech Research Group.

"Walmart went from one of these laggard, traditional retailers to a company that's on the bleeding edge, deploying AI before their peers," Jackson said in a Thursday interview. "The tech platform at Walmart is actually really impressive now."

As CTO, Venkatesan will be responsible for a wide range of areas including cybersecurity, product engineering and data science alongside artificial intelligence, machine learning and infrastructure, the announcement said. 

Personalization is a key component of the role, Jackson said, since the company must find ways to turn its data assets into relevant customer insights.

"If you can't do that, they really squandered an incredible resource," Jackson said. "If they don't do it, they won't be able to maintain their competition with the big payment solution providers."

By Roberto Torres on June 21, 2024
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