If Meg Whitman does indeed decide to hang up her gavel (reported here in the Wall Street Journal, but yet to be confirmed), who will be left running a company that accounts for some 15 per cent of all global ecommerce?

The eBay chief has had various stabs at nurturing home-grown talent and has reached outside at various times to bring in extra firepower. As succession planning goes, it hasn’t exactly been a smooth ride. This is how it has played out:

Jeff Jordan. A former Disney executive who Whitman brought with her when she arrived, Jordan was clearly being groomed for big things. His jobs included running PayPal and the company’s North American operations. He was eventually a casualty of the big slowdown that hit eBay’s core business 3-4 years ago, forcing Whitman to retool her management team, and he was eventually passed over, leaving 18 months ago to "spend more time with his family."

Bill Cobb. When she gave former marketing executive Cobb charge of the North American business three years ago, Whitman signalled that she was setting up a succession race, which at the time also included Matt Bannick (another executive whose star has since faded.) However, Cobb oversaw the disastrous revamp of seller incentives that represents one of eBay’s biggest slips of recent years, as lower listing fees caused its site to be overrun with less valuable inventory, and his role now carries less responsibility than it once did.

Rajiv Dutta. A long-time chief financial officer and head of strategy, Dutta championed the acquisition of Skype and was given his first operational role heading the internet telephone service. Whitman finally admitted the flaws in that deal last year, writing the acquisition down by $1.4bn. Dutta has since moved on to head PayPal, but the false-start at Skype has not left him in a strong position to take the top job.

John Donahoe. Hired in 2005, the former head of Bain (where he also once worked under Whitman) looks like the man who will benefit from these slips. As head of the marketplace division, a position from which he effectively runs eBay’s core business, Donahoe spent last year fixing the mess left from the botched fees overhaul. He is now trying to carve out a broader strategy, using classifieds and other methods to supplement eBay’s traditional auction format for linking buyers and sellers (he described his plans to us in this piece last month.) Wall Street has seen enough of Donahoe to feel comfortable that he has now made the transition from consultant to full operating executive, so the time could be right.

January 22nd, 2008 in Internet | Permalink