eBay lost its head of advertising who is leaving to join LivingSocial as CEO. As General Manager of eBay Advertising, Gautam Thakar was working to transform eBay’s Shopping.com to a broader advertising business – on the path to become a large Ad-tech player, according to his profile on LinkedIn.
eBay spokesperson Ryan Moore said Bridget Davies is stepping in to oversee eBay Advertising on an interim basis. Davies is currently General Manager of eBay Commerce Network, the new name for Shopping.com, rebranded last year.
“Gautum successfully transformed shopping.com into eBay Advertising and put a talented team in place who will continue to lead the business,” Moore said. “We wish him the best in his new role.”
Thakar joined eBay when it acquired an ecommerce startup in India which he had helped scale in his role as Chief Marketing Officer. He will transition to his new role by mid-August. LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy, who announced earlier this year his intention to step down, will remain as an advisor to LivingSocial to assist with the transition.
On its website, eBay Advertising explains it is building ad targeting technologies to connect consumers across the web with relevant products and offers while utilizing the commerce data generated from the activity of 100s of millions of visitors to ebay.com and other eBay companies.
