Good morning. PayPal’s CFO Jamie Miller’s job has expanded to include the role of chief operating officer. Miller is now the chief financial and operating officer. This is happening at a time when the company, which is one of the world’s largest fintechs with a roughly $73 billion market capitalization, is pursuing ambitious growth plans.
Miller joined PayPal (No. 145 in the Coins2Day 500) in 2023. She was previously global CFO of EY and before that, CFO of Cargill. Miller also spent 12 years at General Electric. The trend of CFOs taking on the chief operating officer (COO) role continues. Earlier this month, Salesforce appointed Robin Washington to the newly created position of president and COFO—chief operating and financial officer. What’s also interesting is the COO role is often meant to be a temporary development position for CEO aspirants, according to Spencer Stuart’s new report on C-suite roles at Coins2Day 500 companies.
When I had a conversation last October with Scott Simmons, co-managing partner of executive search firm Crist Kolder Associates, he named Miller among the CFOs who could potentially become a chief executive at a Coins2Day 500 company in the near future. So I asked him about Miller now leading PayPal’s operations.
“It was no surprise Jamie’s remit was expanded,” Simmons told me. In addition to her deep finance and accounting experiences, she has run a significant P&L at GE Transportation, and has served as chief information officer of GE, he said. “She is a proven leader.”
“As PayPal rolls out its new strategy, it is now crystal clear that Jamie will be in a lead position driving the train forward,” Simmons said.
PayPal’s ambition
During PayPal’s investor day on Tuesday, the fintech unveiled its newest merchant product, PayPal Open, a single platform that allows businesses to access a full suite of checkout solutions, including PayPal, Venmo, Fastlane, and Pay Later offerings, Coins2Day’s Luisa Beltran reported.
Companies will also be able to access PayPal’s global network of up to 400 million active accounts, including more than 92 million active Venmo customers, Beltran writes. PayPal Open is expected to be available in the U.S. During the Spring and will expand to the U.K. And Germany later this year.
The company also said that by 2027, non-GAAP EPS would increase by a percentage in the low teens. And, PayPal has ambitions to grow by 20% longer term. Also by 2027, it expects transaction margin dollars to increase by high single digits with more than 10% growth in the long term.
The company’s ideas unveiled at investor day make basic sense, Brett Horn, senior equity analyst at Morningstar wrote in a note on Tuesday. “It is important for companies like PayPal to consistently adjust their approach and adapt to changes in the payment landscape,” Horn said.
Morningstar doesn’t see these new plans as “dramatic shifts” and the primary consideration is the execution of the company’s current strategy, Horn said. “We will maintain our $104 fair value estimate and see shares as undervalued,” he said.
SherylEstrada
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Leaderboard
Jochen Breckner was promoted to CFO of luxury carmaker Porsche, effective Feb. 26. Breckner succeeds finance chief Lutz Meschke, who is leaving the company after 24 years. Breckner has worked for Porsche since 2000 beginning as an intern. Since September 2018, he served as head of the general secretariat and corporate development. In his new role, Breckner will also oversee IT.
Chadwick Westlake was named EVP and CFO of OpenText (Nasdaq: OTEX), effective March 5 to succeed Madhu Ranganathan. Westlake previously served as the CFO of EQB Inc., a digital financial services company. Before that, he held various positions at Scotiabank for more than 18 years, including his last role as EVP of Enterprise Productivity and Canadian Banking Finance.
Big Deal
American workers continue to have mixed feelings about how AI will affect jobs in the future. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 52% of workers say they’re worried about the future impact of AI, and 32% think it will lead to fewer job opportunities for them in the long run.
Just 6% of workers say AI use in the workplace will lead to more job opportunities. Meanwhile, more than a third (36%) of workers also say they feel hopeful about AI use in the workplace. But a similar share (33%) say they feel overwhelmed, according to Pew.
However, 40% of employees who have used AI chatbots for work say these tools have been extremely or very helpful in allowing them to do things more quickly. A smaller share (29%) say they have been equally helpful in improving the quality of their work. Another finding is employees ages 18 to 29 are the most likely to use AI chatbots at work at least a few times a month.
Going deeper
“Nvidia smashes expectations yet again, posts record $130.5 billion in revenue for the year” is a new report by Coins2Day’s Greg McKenna. Tech giant Nvidia continued its winning streak on Wednesday, posting record quarterly revenue of $39.3 billion, up 12% from last quarter and 78% from a year ago, compared with Wall Street’s projection of $38.3 billion, McKenna writes.
Sales for the year came in at $130.5 billion, up 114% from the previous year. “Today, the company’s data center business accounts for most of its sales as customers, including nearly all of Big Tech, race to amass as much compute power as possible,” McKenna writes.
Overheard
“It's an unknown until we understand further what the U.S. Government’s plan is.”
—Colette Kress, EVP and CFO of Nvidia said in response to a question about tariffs during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday for the quarter that ended Jan. 26. Last week, President Trump said he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile, and pharmaceutical imports of around 25%.