In a media move, PayPal Holdings has announced leadership appointments to drive the creation of a new advertising platform and strengthen the company’s consumer value proposition.
PayPal has named Mark Grether as svp, general manager, PayPal Ads and John Anderson as svp, general manager, consumer group. Grether and Anderson will report to Diego Scotti, executive vice president, general manager, consumer group and global marketing and communications.
PayPal stated that its long-standing relationships with millions of consumers and merchants put it in a unique position to create an advertising platform rooted in commerce. The advertising operation, which will include PayPal’s advanced offers platform, will use customer insights to build a dynamic, personalized platform that can drive better advertising spend performance for merchants by providing consumers with compelling offers.
PayPal charged Grether with establishing an advertising business that will help merchants better prepare to sell more products and services effectively, as well as enable consumers to discover more products that suit them, the company stated. He joins PayPal from Uber, where he was the vice president, general manager of Uber Advertising. Before joining Uber, Grether led product strategy for Amazon’s advertising business, according to PayPal, and served as CEO of Sizmek, one of the largest independent advertising platforms globally, which Amazon purchased in 2019.
Responsible for consumer business, Anderson will supervise product strategy for PayPal and Venmo globally. Anderson was head of product and payments for financial services provider Plaid and oversaw significant growth in that company’s payment product suite, PayPal noted. Before joining Plaid, Anderson occupied product and leadership slots at Meta, including head of product for Oculus, head of Facebook Japan, and head of product and operations teams for payments, commerce and risk.
“Commerce and advertising are deeply connected, and we believe that the advertising platform we are building at PayPal will become a must-use marketing channel for merchants big and small. I’m thrilled to have Mark join our team and lead this important work,” said Scotti, announcing the executive appointments and advertising initiative.
