eBay, by any standard, is a fairly young company. We have just celebrated our 15th anniversary last year. For the longest time, eBay was led by a woman – and a really successful one at that. Meg Whitman grew our company from a scrappy start-up in San Jose to a multi-national with operations across the globe. It is in our DNA that we have always employed a diverse global workforce. As we compete globally for talent, the leadership in the company has come to the recognition that we need to formalize and also evangelize our strong belief in the need to have a diverse workforce and get more women into our leadership rank.

 

So, in the beginning of this year, eBay launched our Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) where we invited more than 200 of our women colleagues who are Directors and above to San Francisco for the WIN Summit. Over three days, the group networked, heard from outside speakers and participated in workshops and panel discussions. And they identified actions that they and the company can begin taking to build greater career opportunities for women and enable eBay to build a more diverse global leadership team.

 

On their return, these women leaders have launched WIN groupings for the women in our various local offices where they can provide mutual support. I have the honor of working with one of my women leaders, Judy Chang who runs our PayPal Government Relations portfolio for the region, to kick-off the women’s network within the Asia Pacific Government Relations Team. It is a reflection of the diversity in our company that my Team actually consists of slightly more than 50% women.