PayPal names ex-HP CEO Enrique Lores as its new chief

PayPal is replacing CEO Alex Chriss with Enrique Lores, citing unmet expectations in the company’s pace of change and execution over the past two years.

Lores, a PayPal board member for nearly five years and chair since July 2024, will assume the CEO role on March 1.

CFO and COO Jamie Miller will continue as interim CEO until then, while David Dorman will serve as independent chair.

The company acknowledged Chriss’s contributions, including efforts to monetize Venmo and expand its buy now pay later segment.

In a LinkedIn post, Lores said he is stepping down as president and CEO of HP effective immediately after more than six years in the role.

He said the move gives him the opportunity to drive transformation and innovation at PayPal and make an impact on the global payments industry.

🔗 Source: Associated Press

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The brutal financial reality behind PayPal’s CEO change

The leadership change comes after a long slump. PayPal’s stock is at its lowest level in nearly nine years and sits about 80% below its 2021 peak 1.
PayPal’s high-margin branded checkout business, a health check for its core checkout product at online merchants, rose only 1% in the latest quarter. That rate was 6% a year earlier 1.
Rivals such as Apple and Stripe are taking share, which squeezes PayPal’s payments business 2.
Newer bets have not caught on. The PYUSD stablecoin (a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar) has a market capitalization of about $3.5 billion, compared with USDC at roughly $70 billion 2.

The new CEO’s track record points to an AI-driven efficiency push

Incoming CEO Enrique Lores arrives with a recent record at HP that investors may use as a guide for what comes next at PayPal.
At HP, Lores started a plan to cut 4,000 to 6,000 jobs. The goal was $1 billion in annualized savings by fiscal 2028, paired with a wider AI push 3.
He has said AI will do many tasks “better and will do faster” than employees. He also framed the shift as something companies must take on to stay competitive 4.
His selection signals a board focus on tighter follow-through. That could include AI-assisted changes to how PayPal runs day to day as digital payments and commerce shift with technology, regulations, and AI 5.