eBay to Lose Another Board Member, Former CFO Bob Swan

Bob Swan will not stand for re-election to eBay’s Board of Directors and will retire from the Board at the end of his current term, reducing the Board from ten to nine. The news came in eBay’s Annual Proxy Statement filed with the SEC on Monday.

Swan had been Chief Financial Officer under eBay CEO Meg Whitman and later John Donahoe, from March of 2006 to July 2015. When eBay was forced by activist investor Carl Icahn to break up with PayPal in 2015, Swan transitioned from executive to eBay Board member. It was not the last battle Swan would face with an activist investor.

He is currently an operating partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (since July of 2021), and he sits on the board of Nike, where former eBay CEO John Donahoe is Chief Executive.

Swan received $373,266 in total compensation in 2022 for his role on the eBay Board, which consisted of $123,226 in fees and $250,000 in stock awards, though he elected to receive all shares in lieu of cash fees.

The 2022 Director Compensation Table on page 31 of the filing gives an indication of the Board turnover that has occurred in the past several years, noting the departures of five directors in 2022 alone (Anthony Bates, Diana Farrell, Bonnie Hammer, Kathleen Mitic, Matthew Murphy).

Mitic had been eBay’s longest-tenured director before her departure last year, having served since 2011. With the departure of Bob Swan, that leaves Paul Pressler and Perry Traquina as the longest tenured directors, having joined the Board in 2015. Only two others – Adrianne Brown and Logan Green – were on the Board prior to 2020, the same year eBay founder Pierre Omidyar stepped down from the Board.

All of the current Board members with the exception of Bob Swan are up for election at eBay’s Annual Meeting – each of the nominees has been elected previously by stockholders, except for Aparna Chennapragada and Shripriya Mahesh, who joined the Board on August 18, 2022 and March 14, 2023, respectively.

eBay will hold its Annual Meeting on June 21, 2023, at 8:00 am Pacific Time. eBay published the Proxy Statement on the eBayInc.com Investor Relations website.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.